Text and Hubris

When you have to travel on business it’s best to do it on your terms.

Surprisingly enough, I was able to do that this time. I’m actually taking a train cross-country from St. Paul to Seattle.

I leave tonight.

Why?

Because I could. Because I never have before. Because I am curious.

Is there any better reason?^*

When I was 11, I wrote a story about a dragon, a scorpion, and a young woman. It was awful in that way that all middle school stories seem to be. It was all action, no description, filled with clumsy, silly lines that kept the text from every hitting a decent stride. I loved that story, though.  I worked on it every day. It was mine. Almost twenty-five years later, I am still playing with that story. By now, it is a strange, convoluted fantasy/sci-fi epic that has changed and grown almost as much as its author. Even now, it plays out in my head in those moments before sleep or in those quiet times during the day when my mind has a moment to wander.

I wrote the first part of that story in a yellow notebook my mother bought me. I wrote in the first person and I was proud because I had just learned what first person meant. It was my fantasy journal, a mixture of pretend and creation that suited me so well at the time.

That summer of that year I went to scouting camp and I brought my notebook with me. I was promised some quiet time and I thought that I might have the chance to write. I was dreaming about being an author, someday, and I imagined that this was how they started. I was young, still thinking about options and possibilities. I forgot about the accommodations: small tents and cots with nosy tent-mates.

There was an argument between myself and another boy from my tent. I can’t tell you what we argued over. The topic is lost to me, dead. I forgot it the instant he sneered and mentioned something I had written in my little yellow notebook. It undid me in a way I never expected. They had taken my story. They trashed something that I had built and loved, and I had no clue what to say or do.

I swore at him. I never swore. I grew up in a household where swearing was unimaginable and I swore. I was so angry there were in tears my eyes and I kept swearing. My tent-mates only found this amusing but it was the most damning act I could think of at the time. I stormed off and from that point forward all I wanted to do was go home.

When I got home, I sealed that little notebook away and I never showed it to anyone. It is lost now. A victim of a childhood spent moving. I quit Scouts. I still wrote but in quiet places where my notebooks were safe.

I still fight with that angry little boy, today. He is my biggest critic. His fear and anger sits in my chest. It is an anchor. It is the reason I still do what I do instead of doing what I love. Every day, I get up and I tell the boy that we have to keep going and we do. He rails and screams and swears and the going is slow and agonizing but we keep going. He lists the failures, the falls, and all the mistakes. He mentions that camp and the sneers and I tell him I am so sorry that happened, but I can’t stay there anymore. So I wake up tomorrow and I try again. I am not sure where this ends up, but I still struggle and that must mean something.

At least, I hope that it does.

Courtney and I took the opportunity of a quiet day to visit Micawbers Book Store in St. Anthony. I enjoyed wandering the small shop and picking from a nicely curated selection of texts. As I did so, I was reminded why these independent stores are such an important part of our literary culture. It’s not because they sell books. There are a myriad of places where the sale of books, in many forms, occurs. Instead, these small stores foster community and feed the connection between the reader and the author. As we made our purchases and bantered amiably with the salesmen, I felt a bit of that connection. It was something I sorely missed.

I was spoiled in Iowa City. Prairie Lights and the Writers’ Workshop made finding the literary community in that city a breeze and the fact that I was immersed in it for much of my time at college only made it even easier. One of the major lessons I learned in my time there was that great writers come from great communities. We spend our lives learning from one another. Everything that I write is filtered through the lessons and techniques that I learned not only from incredible teachers but from fellow students as well. Without them, my time would have been sorely wasted. In a sense, I believe this is true of all art. It thrives in communities of people. It grows and evolves through rigorous discussion and critique. In Iowa City, I had that and more.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t stay there, forever. Now, that I am moved and settled in, I start again. I must find that community. My original plan had been to find it at the University of Minnesota’s creative writing program but with the move and the new job and all the chaos of the last year, that deadline slipped away. I may try next year, but I certainly don’t plan to stay idle that entire time. If I do get the opportunity to attend, I would certainly like to have a community of writers and thinkers already there to help me prepare.

Luckily, stores like Micawber’s give me an excellent place to start. Well, that and a wonderful collection of poems by James Wright and Colson Whitehead’s Zone One. Let’s just say that the visit was more than worthwhile.

If you do know of any local literary hot-spots in the Twin Cities, please feel free to let me know. I am looking forward to forging new connections and building community up here. It is always a challenge getting started, though.

For many years, I have been a bit of a Scrooge about Christmas. This isn’t out of any direct dislike for the time of year, but rather for all of the chaos and high-stress emotions that seem to follow it. Every year, all I see are people racing to fill present requests, visit family, hit the office party, cook the perfect Christmas dinner while still attempting to carry a full load of year-end work in their professional lives. With all the activity and stress, people wind themselves into a frazzled mess that doesn’t fully settle until the bitter winds of January are well in swing. Even worse, Christmas and its associated holidays tend to focus our attention on the most unfortunate aspects of our lives. It reminds us of how little we have, how strapped we are for time, and how lonely we can feel. This, it seems to me, is not the best reason to have a holiday.

All of that is true, of course. Nothing stated above is exactly news to anyone who looks around during the holidays. What I wasn’t as willing to admit, though, is that it is also a frighteningly comfortable rationalization. The plain truth is that I used to love this holiday even with all of its associated stress and struggle. Taking aim at the stress caused by season may have afforded me a position of rational strength, but it hid something deeper. For me, something had changed.

This year, as I sat in my apartment and looked out over the city, I began to realize what that change was. My epiphany was born from the fact that this is the first time in my life that I have ever returned somewhere. Usually, I just move on. Being here, now, is the closest I will ever have to coming home. Most of my childhood was spent in Minnesota. I grew up with a single mother and money was always hard to come by. Our struggles did not end with the arrival of Christmas. Nothing magically changed. Oh, we never starved and my mother was always able to get something for us under the tree, but presents were never the highlight of the holiday. Our highlights came from an entirely different source and for me, well, it’s something I never thought about before. My mother happened to be a devout Christian and she was determined that we understand that Christ was the center of the holiday. She understood that denying us Santa or cursing the secular aspects of the season would only push us away. Instead, she merely included aspects of her own that settled in next to Santa and were every bit as important to us as the Christmas tree. She treated us to a series of recorded stories about Christmas from a special set designed just for the holidays. Every night we would gather, mark down the days until Christmas and listen to another story. Then as the days grew closer the celebrations both at home and in the Church would increase. For me, Christmas meant midnight candlelight services, songs and chants, and all the assorted ritual that my protestant church felt was appropriate.

And there, there was the difference. Christmas used to be about connection. Connection reinforced through rituals that stretched back through the ages. There was meaning in that. A meaning that I had lost.

Of course, I am not the same boy I once was and while I confess a deep appreciation for the sense of ritual and history the Church provides, I cannot say I am ready to throw aside my own hard-learned lessons and return. Instead, I am seeking to reconnect with that sense of ritual. Perhaps, in this return there is also a chance at finding a way to see these holidays as a moment of celebration and relaxation. Rather than panicking about the small things or worrying about the physical pieces of detritus that fill up our lives, I am content to spend the day with my wife in quiet contemplation remembering a year that had it shares of victories and losses. I will think of my mother and my father and theirs before them. I will remember the past and welcome the future.

And all of a sudden, I am not feeling as Scrooge-like anymore.

Happy Holidays to you all!