only rumbling over potholes

I sit in the taxi with Peter. I sit in the passenger's seat on the left side of the car, which still mixes me up. Peter has driven me before, and he has a kind smile, and a lazy eye, which makes him seem more friendly somehow. I try to carry on a conversation, but I run out of things to ask, and I know that in this culture, taxi drivers are not accustomed to being friendly with their customers (even if we are regulars). In the silence, I think about how I wish I had more words -- more things to say to people, more Swahili words to say it in a way that expresses a deeper commitment to their culture. I also think about how I want to write more, but the words are just not there yet. All I hear is rumbling like this van over the potholes in the road we are driving. And then I remember a writer's advice, how the lack (of details or information or whatever) is sometimes what you build the story around.  

***

We had an hour training on language acquisition. It's about culture learning and relationship building, too, not just memorizing a list of words and stringing them together to make sentences. You start by listening and pointing, not even saying a word. The idea is that listening in context, paying attention, finding language in its home and making that home more and more yours will be what shifts your thinking and fire new neurons until you produce new words. This means you will be quiet at first, and maybe for a long while. But when the words come, they may flow.

***

I am making lists of words I learn in their context, which stick more easily that the ones on my flashcards. Mtoto, child, who were invited up for prayer during church. Bwana asifiwe, praise the Lord, a refrain in worship songs. Hatari, danger, the name of the security company whose name is posted on all of the surrounding compounds. Lipa, pay, on my M Pesa account. I brainstorm ways to be around Swahili more just to hear it and put life to words and words to life. I am not ready to speak yet. When the staff speak to me to help me learn, I look back at them blankly, and then we laugh.

I'm hoping the language acquisition training was right, that the words will soon flow.

our own inner mystery

When we do not protect with great care our own inner mystery, we will never be able to form community. It is this inner mystery that attracts us to each other and allows us to establish friendship and develop lasting relationships of love. An intimate relationship between people not only asks for mutual openness but also for mutual respectful protection of each other’s uniqueness.

-Henri Nouwen, Reaching Out 

***
(photo: reflection at st. james episcopal, lancaster, pa)

literary, lately: not about me edition

Writing quick and dirty this week has meant writing a lot of random thoughts about me. Ugh, I know. You're probably even more tired of it than I am. So I give you some other things to read, listen to, think about that are not about me. (Well, mostly not about me... This whole exercise leads me to some existential thinking about whether that can even be possible since obviously these are coming to you through the filter of me... but I'll spare you from that.)

Food tells stories and holds memories -- about our past, our wars, our ways healing. On stories and recipes from northern Sri Lanka.

This blog is helping me think less about me. Loved the update this week on the stories of #15girls and the short post on the new secretary-general of the U.N. (a stark contrast to a certain presidential candidate). And, using narrative to change attitudes toward FGM.

Someone else's favorites. I love these kinds of posts!

This podcast* is exactly what I need to hear, every week. And the host hits the heart by talking about her life (someone to learn from!).

Love this quote. ... it just begins to live that day.

***
*I know, it's really white privileged Christian content but... still, I think Christy Nockels, through her music and speaking, has such a deep and unique grasp on the Word that I really admire.

(photo: looking up)

feeding along the way

In my last post I wrote about my love/hate relationship with professional travel. This time it was all love, and I’m so grateful. This particular conference felt like it was a stepping stone along the path of some of the new things that are happening during this season (that transition/transformation I wrote about a little while back). These kinds of experiences are true grace, a breeze at your back, a gentle nudge to continue in the same direction.

So, a list of highlights, if you’re interested…

City of Bridges // Running in new cities is always a highlight, especially when that city has some water running through it. Pittsburgh has lots of it – three rivers, with more than 400 bridges crossing them at various points. (Did you know it’s the American city with the most bridges? I didn’t.) The first morning I left my hotel just as the sky was beginning to brighten and followed a haphazard loop over all three rivers, stopping for lots of photos. The second morning, I crossed the Rachel Carson Bridge (so cool there's a bridge named after this author) and ran along the Three Rivers Heritage Trail, a concrete path bordered by green overgrowth and yellow wild flowers, with a river just beyond. It was pure Pennsylvania and made my heart so happy. (I didn’t realize how much Pittsburgh would feel like home…)

Medicine, mission, mercy // Remember those uninspiring keynotes I referenced? Not at this conference. The second morning was my favorite. Dr. Jim Withers shared his story of providing medical care to Pittsburgh’s homeless folks for decades and helping to create Street Medicine programs at medical schools around the world. The concept of mobile medical care that creates access and cultivates justice has become my heart, especially since traveling to Kenya. It was such an honor to hear him share his stories, and with such humility and passion.

The life of an artist // I made a few friends, one of whom works at the Carnegie Museums in Pittsburgh. Over dinner, I mentioned that I might visit the Andy Warhol Museum after the conference. The next morning, she found me to tell me she’d arranged for my free entry. Later that day (which was also after I’d given my presentation), I wandered the city, found some coffee, and made my way over. Warhol’s art is funky and fun, and observing the trajectory of an artist’s life is incredibly inspiring. My favorite part was the display of contents from his time capsule from the year 1984. His collection of all kinds of random paraphernalia reminded me that inspiration can come from anywhere, and being an avid collector of it can keep creativity fresh.

“Something you said…” // After I presented on the last morning of the conference, several people came up to talk to me afterwards. One woman introduced herself, then started her comments on my presentation with this phrase. It stuck with me because this year has in some ways been one of strengthening my voice. My dream is to hear this over and over – that the things I say have impact, stir something in people, inspire change and vision. Years ago I often found myself afraid to speak, and when I first started this job I wasn’t thinking I’d one day be one who teaches and encourages others, especially by the room-full. It’s one of those dreams I never thought to dream, but the One who knows our truest, deepest desires knows how to bring those about, and how to keep directing our hearts beyond those things to eternity.

I could write more – of really good coffee and chatting with the same barista each day, of great food, of an inspiring session on diversity that was a helpful way to process some of the violence erupting on the streets of cities across our country, of a man who passed me on the street and told me I looked like Taylor Swift (ok, his sanity was questionable but I’m thinking this was one of his lucid moments?). There was just so much. 

There’s a verse in Isaiah that speaks of the people of God feeding along the way and finding provision in places they thought barren -- reminders of God’s goodness and restoration as they make their way to their true home, the City of God. And it’s these seemingly little or mundane things that I think Isaiah might be referring to. They aren’t the thing to shoot for, but they signal to us that God knows our truest desires and has put eternity in our hearts. They bring joy, but what’s better is that they keep us along the path to the One who holds our hearts and is the ultimate thing (relationship/beauty/wonder) we yearn for.

***

(photo: fort duquesne bridge at the beginning of morning run)

this is a story about desire

On a cool fall day when dry, brown leaves skittered across sidewalks and clouds lumbered across the tired sky, Jen and I sat in a car together. She was dropping me off, or I was dropping her off, I don’t remember which it was. We had probably just had coffee together, and I likely filled much of the time talking about Geoff and dating and how hard it was at that moment. And had been over the past few months. Jen was my mentor and from the very beginning of our relationship seemed to know more about my heart than I did. Looking back, I think it was that she knew her own heart, and God’s love for it, and therefore knew the nature of hearts trying to find that kind of love. So the question she asked me should not have been surprising, but it was.

Betsy, what do you want?

I remember being annoyed that she was asking me this. It’s obvious, I thought. She’d been listening to me talk the last hour, the last year about dating this guy. I want him. But even as that thought came, I knew it wasn’t all of what’s true. Yes, I had grown to love him and the times when we felt connected. But in the space of time between my initial response and trying to decide on words, I realized what I most wanted, really, was to be loved and to be free.

Outside the car window, trees were letting go of leaves and allowing themselves to be laid bare for the coming winter months. It would be another two months before Geoff and I broke up, but I think I knew it then. I needed to let go.

But this is not a story about giving up. It’s about desire.

That question got in to some crack in my heart that dating Geoff had opened. Up to that point, I knew I had many wants, many desires, but mostly I felt clumsy in the way I went after them, or assumed most of them were too big or not right. So I spent a lot of time hiding them or feeling stupid when I couldn’t. (Even now, when a desire rises so strong that I cry, I will say to myself – or, now more and more, to God – “I don’t know why I’m crying,” as I shake my head and wipe my tears and try to control my emotions.) 

Jen’s question that day made me realize that my desires can be named, and that they are likely much deeper and truer than whatever shallow form they might take on the surface of my life. A boyfriend, a husband, loyalty, humor – yes, I want these things. But more true is that I long for love, connection, being partnered, speaking into another's life in a way that realizes and sustains a deep vision, joy that trumps disappointment. Eyes that truly see.

What Jen gave me by asking that question was the opportunity to recognize these desires, and also to name them in the presence of somebody who could hold them before Jesus. There's a story in the Bible where a blind beggar hears that Jesus is passing by, and he decides to cry out for Jesus’ attention. Jesus stops and asks, “What do you want me to do for you?” Give me my sight, the beggar says. It was seeing, and also that deeper longing for restoration that he asked for. 

And it’s that last part of the question, the part that Jen didn’t ask me (because she couldn’t) that grabs my attention lately. Bringing desires before Jesus, who can do for me what no one else can (who can give me my desires), transforms them from random wishes to real, tangible seeds that contain all the fullness of what I’ve already been promised. Give me my sight...

literary, lately: what in the world edition

I'm back in LA but my heart is elsewhere (mostly, still in Kenya). I jump between trying to snap out of it so I can get on with life and looking for ways to transport myself back. Maybe that's what a lot of us are doing now - simultaneously busying ourselves with both remembering and forgetting. Here's some wonderful and beautiful and touching and powerful stuff that's helping me remember (because that's usually the way to go).

Read this story. It's about refugee poets, about not remembering but trying to remember, about the intricacies of language, both tongue and heart, about empowering young people, about so much more.

How could anyone look at Trayvon's baby face and not see a child? And not feel an innate desire to protect, to cherish? How? ... I needed words. It's been an(other) difficult summer in America. I have few words for it, but thankfully others are strong, bold and fearless enough to write some. I read this essay and am now reading the book it's from. Good stuff.

A poem by a friend in East Africa. Yes.

For hope, listening to these words. Truth.

Watching this to keep feeling Kenya. I will always love the melody and poetry with which they speak the English language. (Without thinking too much about the history or politics of it anyway...)

***

(photo: bringing in the goats for the night, Kenya 2016)

literary, lately: Kenya edition

I'm using the term "literary" loosely in the title of this post. Really, it's just an excuse to share some of the things that are helping me gear up for Kenya.

Issues are addressed institutionally, programatically. People are addressed in their story. Watching Poverty, Inc. and was especially moved by the portion about a family helping orphans by helping parents who might have been forced to give up their children. Love this quote about the person to person way of addressing poverty. (Streaming on Netflix!)

The mzungu who is cringing right now, reading this, afraid to be like all these others and yet who fears it might be inevitable. That was me, reading my friend's kick-ass essay on all the shades of foreigners in east Africa.

Remembering how books are a large part of what inspired me to go in the first place.

A Kenyan fav.

A friend posted a photo on facebook from our trip last year that made me look scarily similar to white savior barbie. Imagine a long skirt, Maasai jewelry, one young girl hold each of my hands. Been thinking about how photos are often too flat to convey all of what's true (there is more to what was happening that day then getting photo opps with children), but also how to act and see in a way that embodies true partnership and love.

Edited to add: I love their reading lists. (Fitting, since reading about the founder of PIH is what made me want go to Kenya in the first place.)

Be back in a few weeks with stories from Kenya.

***
(photo: morning safari ride at Lake Nakuru, summer 2015)

it just takes a little effort

I am a comfort person... But I don't want to rest on something just because I have in the past. I really enjoy challenging myself, I really enjoy being in new places. It just takes a little effort for me to keep putting myself in those new places.

- musician Sara Watkins via here.

Glad I have some company on this (thinking of this recent blog post...).

PS Sara Watkins has a new album out today! and my earliest Sara Watkins love when Nickel Creek was still a thing (RIP).

***
(photo: city lights from a new-to-me rooftop restaurant.)

tell me to come to you

Then Peter called to Him, "Lord, if it's really you, tell me to come to you, walking on the water."

"Yes, come," Jesus said.

So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water towards Jesus.

-Matthew 14:28-29

***

(photo: surfers in Venice Beach)

literary, lately: june edition

Unlike fiction, nonfiction is not a genre. It's a headache. An explanation for why The Sixth Extinction was number one on a list of the top 100 books of English-language nonfiction (chronological, working backwards), this piece also forced me to look up the word vituperative and made me feel, once again, hopelessly under-read -- a feeling I am trying to make a joyful one (so many books to read, yay!).

In the end, the trials of their relationship are worth bearing, because Frog and Toad are most content when they're together. Loved reading more about these beloved stories, though the speculation that they were actually gay lovers felt disappointing and maybe unnecessary. These days, friendship is so easily confused for romance or cheapened by sex. I think the boundary lines of friendship are incredibly sheltering, not restrictive.

One day you will hear a physicist say we are all made from the bodies of dead stars, and it will feel as if you've known it all along. A powerhouse of a story, and short, which is good because you might hold your breath the whole way through.

Like the first man / I was cut so deep by heaven's knife. One of my favorite stories, in song form.

No words, just these photos. Kenya, I'm coming for you.

***
(photo: writing, the view from above)

literary, lately: may version

Irony (or sign?): I am at a coffee shop trying to write a cute little essay about my ambivalence regarding writing friendships. In walk friends from church, who encourage me to reach out to writer-poet acquaintance. Maybe I will share the essay someday soon. Maybe I will email said poet. Who knows.

In the meantime, some links:

Reading this article on men in book clubs. At first I took offense to the idea that these clubs choose only books by men and with male protagonists. Isn't part of the joy of literature, and responsibility of literary citizenship, the act of entering into another's experience through books? But it started to make sense to me when the author of the piece explained that "the monthly meetings provide a space to explore literary depictions of what it means to be a man" and give them a unique space to explore empathy. Ok, maybe I can get behind that.

New Girl Crush: film director and screenwriter Ava Duvernay after listening to this interview on the power of voice and the making of Selma. I loved their conversation, especially the part about how her own "gaze" (a term she uses a lot) led her to shape scenes in Selma in a particular way. If I'd been interviewing her, I'd follow up with questions about what it's like to follow her instinct when making a film, how she developed her own voice, and what her favorite books are (of course).

Procrastinating on some blog posts about books I've finished. I'm falling behind. It was inevitable. At the same time, feeling inspired/validated in my approach by this short piece on the new Bookmarked series, in which authors write about books that inspired them. (Personal narrative, not criticism or cliff notes.)

This song on repeat.

Last week, I gave my goddaughter some books for her birthday, including Frog and Toad - my favorite. At first she got distracted from the books by a small Hello Kitty bracelet, but then she picked up Frog and Toad, scooched onto my lap and asked me to read to her. Heart melted.

***

(photo: blurry palm trees and car lights somewhere along the 110, being sped home after writing conference)

reminder to self: these things count as writing

Last weekend, I sat in circle of students' desks in a college classroom. The other desks were filled with fellow writing conference attendees with whom I share at least one commonality: our paying work is not our writing. We met twice, once over dinner and then two days later over lunch. Our time was limited but we didn't waste any of it because the challenges are obvious. We had a lot to talk about.

In my head, I list off the hardships of this kind of life - often - where they end up cluttering my emotions as excuses or whines or justifications. (so little time, so little energy, writing at night is hard, offices don't cultivate creativity, I need a social life, just one more episode of Gilmore Girls...)

So! Instead of challenges and whining, I present for you a list of all of the many things that feed writing. For me, words on paper are most satisfying, but they are not always the point. The point, I'm beginning to realize (I can be slow, I know) is to build a writing life.

reading
revising
zoning out
reading old journals
googling
making a spreadsheet of publications to submit to
catching up with friends at writing group
listening to podcast interviews with authors and other artists
blogging
writing for my friend's nonprofit
asking questions
going to readings
hanging out at bookstores
praying
journaling
listening to music
making plans for writing
transcribing passages I like
movies (sometimes)

***

(photo: book stack from sometime last year)

the art of memoir

Here’s the thing: like a lot of people, I feel pretty ambivalent about memoirs, mostly because I’ve read some really mediocre ones. At their worst, it feels like the author is forcing me to sit through a therapy session with them, or as if I’m sitting across from an extroverted stranger with poor emotional boundaries at a coffee shop. He is just talking at me with no pause to insert myself into the conversation. Bordering on painful.

I’ve read a few good ones. I was surprised by Stephen King’s On Writing, which was fun and insightful and which I still remember parts of (telling, for me). More recently, Edwidge Danticant’s Oh Brother, I’m Dying placed her own current life as a writer and soon to be mother alongside the lives of her parents and uncle, who raised her in Haiti and then in America, giving readers a sense of what’s kept and passed along through blood and across oceans.

Let me get to it: I read The Art of Memoir (mostly on a friend’s recommendation) and really enjoyed it. Part critique (of memoirs the author has taught to aspiring writers for many years), part instruction, and part memoir (of course), the book felt like taking a master class with a good friend. I underlined a lot, but my biggest takeaway is this sense that writing about one’s own life is shaped by one's particular passions and way of moving through the world.

Here is a passage that brought it together for me:

… there begins to burble up onto the page what’s exclusively yours both as a writer and as a human being. If you trust the truth enough to keep unveiling yourself on the page – no matter how shameful those revelations may at first seem – the book will naturally structure itself to maximize what you’re best at. You’re best at it because it sits at the core of your passions.

Throughout the book, the author calls this "what's exclusively yours" talent, which is kind of her because implied is that we all have it. It just needs to be uncovered and refined – through hours spent writing, interrogating, remembering, revising. (I would add a few spiritual disciplines to this list, too, but that may be another post for another day.) 

Also implied is that, requiring a process that involves reexamining and “correcting the easy interpretation” in order to reach a version of truth worth sharing, writing may actually heal us. Which, in my opinion, makes the hard work of writing a good memoir a worthwhile pursuit.

***

(photo: magnetic poetry memoir with by my niece)

literary, lately

A few links, if you're interested...

I love awards season. Though this year, the Golden Globes were underwhelming - the acceptance speeches too self satisfied, the nominees mostly ones I care little about. I'm afraid the Oscars won't be much better. BUT! We always have literary awards. Today, the Pen literary awards short list was announced.

Unofficial goal this year: read more fiction by African authors. Just added a few of these to my list.

And another reading list, this one from authors presenting at a writing conference I'll attend. Love this list of authors, some favorite and some new ones to explore.

Make this part of my writing mission statement - from Sarah Manguso in her piece on envy and what drives our writing

The purpose of being a serious writer is not to express oneself, and it is not to make something beautiful, though one might do these things anyway. Those things are beside the point. The purpose of being a serious writer is to keep people from despair. If you keep that in mind always, the wish to make something beautiful or smart looks slight and vain in comparison. If people read your work and, as a result, choose life, then you are doing your job.

Lastly, I give you my favorite new instagram account: Hot Dudes Reading, Female readers, you're welcome. Male readers, take note.

look, count, if you can

“Look up at the sky and count the stars…” – Gen 15:5

It was the middle of September. It was the beginning of leaves changing to rich, deep shades of fire and gold, colors that could fool you into believing life was now just beginning. But soon enough you would see leaves turn and fall and be swept away with the wind.

He was my first love. One night after nightfall, he parked the car at the edge of campus and we walked onto the empty golf course, far enough from street lights and buildings and cars that the darkness showed us a full night sky. I would have spread out the blanket that we laid on. Our backs were held by the ground beneath us, his hand reach behind his head, my head rested in the pocket it made. We looked up. We would have talked about his day meeting students on campus, my work at the after school program, the shapes of constellations in the night sky. Or we would have been silent, knowing each other by what is communicated in warmth, breath, heartbeat. The sky was a dome that curtained us, our very own tent of stars and promises.

Three months later, all that possibility slowly fell in on us. Once, as a child, I made a tent with my best friend out of blankets and chairs and pillows. It stretched to the size of her living room. We hid inside and made up stories. Light filtered through the bright colors of blankets. But then her cat came and pounced on the blankets, and our imaginary world was just a pile of soft, flimsy material. The sky didn’t hold.

But it was true that in that moment, looking at the stars, all things seemed possible. I remember that night as my favorite with him. I was searching for something that, that night at least, I thought I had found.

A few years later, I sat with a therapist every other week. Our last session together, she gave me a piece of paper and crayons and told me to draw. I fashioned firm ground and a rooted tree, and covered them with a limitless dark sky with stars. Our interpretation didn’t seem all that nuanced at the time: look at the stars. It’s something that gives you peace. After that, I sometimes drove toward the mountains above my city, away from the lights, to see what kind of view of the sky I could get. I searched the darkness, but I'm not sure I really knew what I was looking for.

Here is what is true about the night sky: it is not a dome but the universe, which is limitless, and expanding. You could try to count the stars, but their number is infinite. New ones are still being discovered. If you look long enough, they will appear to be moving, some across the sky, some around each other. There are things happening out there we will never be able to know.

When an old, childless man wondered aloud if he would have to settle for a servant as his heir instead of his own son, the answer given him was no. The proof was the sky, and all the stars. Look and count, he was told. If you can. Even the One making the deal considered the infinite nature of what he was giving, the seeming impossibility of the promise. Now, as I read this story, I'm challenged to think of stars and sky as more than just a metaphor for something big and good. Look. Count. Spend your lifetime comprehending how big the universe is and how many stars live up there. Drive up the mountain again and again if you need to. Keep your tally, if you can. Then you will know my intentions toward you, I hear the One saying.

The old man went out, looked, counted. I wonder how long he stood there, how he could grasp what was being said to him, what made him believe it to be true.  

the story behind the stories

"You ask me questions I like to answer."
              - Kurt Vonnegut to wife Jane

Loved reading this little love-story-behind-the-stories about Kurt Vonnegut and his wife. Writers' lives are pretty fascinating to me, knowing they're what feeds the books we read. I like how we get to see Jane in this recount, if only as a shadow. (We can conclude that, in reality, she was so much more.)

(And that quote - yes.)

running new orleans

One of my favorite ways to see new city is to run it. Running takes you further than walking does. The terrain gives you a feel for the city - how dirty or broken the sidewalks are, the hills or lack of them, the kinds of trees and flowers that grow there. I'm usually doing it when the sun's still rising, which means that streets aren't too crowded - and, just like with people, watching it wake up can tell you a lot about a place.

I got two morning runs in during a quick trip to New Orleans this week. New Orleans is a complex town, both rick in its celebration - food, partying, colors - and disturbing in its desperation - age, disrepair, neglect. I took some photos during my running tours, below. There's a lot that these photos don't capture - the French street names and how they were marked in tile letters on street corners; the strip clubs next to the coffee shops and breakfast joints; the faces of tired men walking to the bus stop for work; the blankets covering people who had slept on streets. But I think they show some of its beauty, some bestowed and other hard-won.

The first day, I found a bit of a path along the Mississippi, then ran through the French Quarter and a sketchy neighborhood, then back to Canal Street, a main thoroughfare (where I had plotted a coffee stop at the end of my run). The second day, I wanted to make it over to the Garden District. On my way, I found myself on Magazine Street (boutiques! cafes!) completely by accident, then saw a coffee shop I'd heard about. I might have had a donut and coffee in the middle of my run. It felt like the right thing to do in a place like New Orleans.

Day 1:

Morning, Mississppi!

Sky and water

French Quarter

Louis Armstrong Park

Day 2:

Sunrise over the Mississippi

Shops on Magazine Street

Lower Garden District (I think?)

Coffee stop!

books as friends, and a city that gives you space

If books were my friends (which, um, they are), I'd probably categorize them the same way I do my friends. I hope that doesn't sound overly utilitarian, but let's face it: hopefully we love our friends as wholly as we're able, but we often appreciate them for those one or two unique and complex qualities that sets them apart from others we know. It's what appeals to us in them, what draws us in. For example, I have this friend at work who is endlessly bubbly and enthusiastic and loves frappuccinos (with lots of whipped cream, of course), and she also has this incredibly smart, analytic take on things. I especially love to be around her when I want dessert, need a pep talk, or feel like my brain is failing me. And because of her, I just bought a girlie dress that I wouldn't say is "me," but that I love.

The same with books. I'm not looking to each book I read to bring the same kind of experience. I guess this is pretty obvious, especially when it comes to choosing different genres. But even when I read, say, two different books of narrative nonfiction, the author's voice and spin and language and images all work together to create a unique feel. What I'm getting at is that, reading Meghan Daum's newest book of essays, The Unspeakable, made me feel like I was with a friend (and actually reminded me of one of my closest friends). Daum's book is interesting, and heartfelt but not overly emotional. She said a lot of things that question the way I usually think about the world around me, which got me thinking. And I didn't always agree with her, but I trusted her enough to keep going along with her.

I came to this book and author through an essay published in The New Yorker a few months back, which is also part of this collection. It's called Difference Maker, and in it, she writes about her desire to remain childless. As she digs through her experiences and relationships to help the reader understand her path to this decision, she remains balanced (not sentimental at all, a leaning that the subject could lend itself to pretty easily) and yet uncovers what she called the Central Sadness (what a universal name!) in her marriage during one season of recognizing what remaining childless might mean for her and her husband. When I first read this essay back in the fall, I sat on my couch for a while afterward, thinking about it - about her process and how I could relate to that Central Sadness she described, and also about how she was able to achieve what she did with her writing.

One of my favorite essays in Daum's new collection is about Los Angeles, called Invisible City. If you're a reader of this blog, you probably know that I have my issues with LA (the traffic! the incessant sun! the fake green! and the metaphor that is!). Daum doesn't so much rant about LA* as see it with clear eyes and describe what she sees. Her premise is that, even though LA is a place where people come to be seen (or known - like, become famous), it's also a place where you can be invisible. She writes:

Now I just think that LA is a place that's hard to see close up. You can't capture it from the street. It's an aerial-view kind of city, best photographed from a helicopter or hillside. There are people everywhere, but they are hidden in their cars or houses, or they are tiny specks hiking on canyon trails, their dogs even tinier specks beside them, the wildlife crouched in the sagebrush unnoticed. LA is a place that will leave you alone if you need it to. It will let you cry in your car. It will give you your space. (emphasis mine, because exactly.)

It might be weird of me to say, but Daum's essay made me a little more sympathetic toward LA. As if I never thought that some of its flaws weren't its intentional doing, but rather just a result of how people have people the place. That is one of the best qualities that a friend can have, isn't it - to help others see more clearly, and as a result, find it in themselves to forgive. To act with grace toward the world around them.

*Ok but she does rant just a little bit, with such fresh imagery: "The surreal effects of watching these [obvious LA] cliches play out before you in real life and in real time can make your head spin. They can make you feel like the one live person in an animated children's show."

these posts are my scraps

A week or two ago I finished a heartbreaker of a book. Those are always the hardest to follow, so I waited on what I should read next. Some kind of presence nudged me to a book I've had on my shelf for a few years, one I bought at a used bookstore because I'd heard good things about it, and there it was, gently loved and only $7. It's called The Forest for the Trees: An Editor's Advice to Writers. I'd been thinking about this book a lot over the past few months, but it's one about writing and I try to be careful about these books because they can lead to procrastination without a whole lot learned.

But this book is renewing my confidence in books about writing. Every chapter is exactly what I need to hear to the very hour. Last week, for example, I had been revising an essay in which my former housemates are mentioned. As a courtesy, I'd been planning to send them the essay to read before I submitted it, but as I got closer to finishing it, I became more and more anxious about having them read it. I made a few last changes and sent it off, hoping I'd explained myself well enough in my emails to them. Then I drove home from the coffee shop where I'd been working and finished reading the chapter called The Wicked Child, which is really about the risks of writing about your tribe, your community, your family. This essay wasn't about them per se, but it involved my time living with them, which makes it about us. The author had a bunch of helpful admonitions for me, many of which I'm still chewing on. This one sticks out:

I can't think of a risker business than writing. Not only because so few succeed in conventional terms, with publication and some payment, but because it almost certainly requires banishment. First, there is the literal act of removing oneself, of choosing solitude. Then there is the psychological separation, holding oneself apart. And finally, the potential rejection of friends and family, critics and publishers... But you cannot censor yourself; successful writing never comes about through half-measures.

More on that another time - maybe. What I really wanted to write about is what she starts with, which is answering the question about why one should write. She calls the chapter The Ambivalent Writer. She's an editor, so she knows how many of us are just that. Most of her advice is reminiscent of Rilke (a la "must I write?') but in modern and straightforward terms, and taking it a step further to encourage us to unearth not just an obsession to write but what our obsessions compel us to write. Finding form and subject is like finding a mate, she writes. "You really have to search, and you can't compromise -- unless you can compromise, in which case your misery will be of a different variety." She writes about honoring the forms and subjects that invade our dreams and diaries, of mining the scraps of what we write, and of listening to the voices that keep calling to be written.

As you might gather from my erratic posting, I struggle with knowing what to write about. That's part of the reason my job works well for me -- they tell me what to write about, and usually I'm able to do it with some enthusiasm. Though let me tell you that they day they took me off Urology as one of my designated programs, I was a happy woman. Even that tells me something -- I enjoy writing about my organization's efforts to address spiritual or emotional challenges and support patients beyond the bedside, or studies about how cancer affects large populations of people, or the disease's impact on women. Sorry men, my writing heart is not beating for your prostates, not now anyway.

But something I'm hopeful about is that some of the most random or messy posts here could still be useful because they can point to write I notice and what calls to me. They tell me what I care or notice enough to write about. They are my scraps that I can mine.

picking up the pace in the second half

I had been running for a few years before I paid any attention to things like "progressive runs" or "negative splits." These training objectives are based on the idea that finishing faster than you started improves your fitness. So with each mile, you run a little faster. Sometimes the goal can be even simpler: just run the second half of your route faster than the first half.

I don't do these kinds of runs often, because, like I've said before, I'm stronger at starting than finishing. This is true in running, and it's true in a lot of other areas of my life. I start fast and strong but then lose energy and focus, and poop out.

BUT! I am on a quest to change this, in running and in life. Today marks the halfway point of 2014. The first half of my year has been pretty good. There are a few areas of life that I'm trying to focus on, and in a few there has been noticeable movement forward (including in writing!). So I'm not really trying to make up for things I've ignored during these first six months. I just want to finish strong, with my purpose in mind.

When I do the "second half faster than the first half" style of progressive run, I usually plan an out-and-back route. So I'm imagining myself doing the little turn around and picking up the pace. It might hurt a little during this second half, but the pain is what tells me something is happening.

Happy half of 2014!