near wild heaven

This is now, this is here, this is me, this is what I wanted you to see.

I think perhaps I should post something. It's another Saturday night for Zithereen spent in the company of beer, pizza, and a little writing (actually, the writing came first). I also debated with a friend the merits of many interrelated topics, having to do with why people go, or fail to go, to the places they go. In life. In the big picture. My liberalized education showed through rather admirably, I think. The question I could not stop asking, the question to which I believe there is no final answer, was: why do people wind up where they wind up? What happens to people? Why do some people achieve tremendous success and satisfaction while others fail in imagination, skill, ability, intelligence, work ethic, accomplishment and happiness? Why do most of us meet some happy middle wherein we accept failure of imagination and boredom as a way of life, even as we also accept the comfortable paychecks that feed and perpetuate our dependence upon that which fails to satisfy? (Enter your own here: job, relationships, children, marriage, parents, house, education, all of them, others I don't even know.) For me, for sure, not all the cards are on the table. Meaning that there is no way to achieve a final result: this is THIS WAY for THESE REASONS. Maybe I desire evidence on a topic that defies evidence, so I will be perpetually disappointed in my search. It's more possible that I'm opposed to boiling human nature down to a relative formula we substitute as the truth. We all have too much blind faith in our own perceptions and upbringing, accepting as truth powerful messages that only read as truth. Our own values. How we've come to believe as we believe.

My parents grew up poor. Really poor. There were other problems too. They didn't go to the dentist until they were on their own, in their twenties. Neither went to college. Nowadays both have done plenty, both have jumped classes and exist now, rather solidly, in the middle class (they're divorced, of course). I'm touched by their remarkable will and resourcefulness. I am here where I am because of decisions they made before I was born, decisions to leave their dead-end hometown and head to what was, for them, the big city. They eventually settled in my hometown, a harmless little town a half hour from where they worked. They have both taught me something about the value of will and resourcefulness, how it is more important than raw talent or ability. I have tried to learn from them. They also taught me about the thin margin between the lives they were raised in, and they lives they have made. I'm interested in that line, mainly because it illuminates the questions over which I obsess. In a general sense, their lives may mirror other class-jumping "success stories." But I don't buy into this generality. My parents' journies have been so intricate, and so improvisational, so instinctual, that I am left to wonder how any of us can comfortably arrive at our renderings of other people. And I do mean renderings; versions. Our judgements of others are just opinions; there is nothing inherent to pin all these people into place--I defy you to try. I know things with my parents could have gone differently. Why did they go this way? Surely their will and resourcefulness were significant factors, I know this; I won't share the ugly specifics here, but my parents' positive traits were not the only reason for their "success." Some unusual things happened, and by that I don't mean to imply that my parents got off scot-free. Quite the opposite. My father's tremendous will is predicated upon some things quite dark. For example.

I am not even trying to reach a conclusion. In some things, I am not interested in conclusion, in finality, in reckoning. They're myths as often as they're not. It's process that matters. I wonder a lot about the thin margin separating my parents from two different lives. They made their own luck, you could say, but a swipe or two could have taken them down. But that didn't happen. People in my parents' childhood positions sem to have such little margin, so little room for error (even as they are, generally, more prone to error). How did this happen? I can't say. My views conceal as much as they illuminate. But I'm going to keep asking.

posted by: zithereen at April 25, 2004 01:32 | link | comments (5) |

Right now I should be hunched over my copy of Ulysses, one of the more diificult books ever written, but I can't concentrate. It's been another busy day that has followed a busy, crushing weekend of writing. I finished my draft of The Runner and am proud of the effort--6000 words in a single week!--even as I know it has holes aplenty and needs the help of the workshop and some time and perspective. And while I was typing away at that story, I thought it would be just dandy to get an idea for a revision of a story I've hardly thought of in a year and a half, and because I am afraid that good ideas are time sensitive and will vanish if not written down, I had to produce another thousand words on THAT story. Plus the workshop today, and a pleasant, friendly and grueling conversation with Michelle (see posts in January)--a woman who I love dearly and would do just anything for if I thought it might help--and what we're left with is a very tired Zithereen who would rather complain to his faithful readers than concentrate on a masochistic text like Ulysses (or so I say now, in the teeth of my fatigue). This means I'll be behind on Ulysses, but I expect that. It's not my top priority right now.

But at least my fatgue is caused by the finest of things. I have been writing a lot. I talked with my dear friend and teacher today. And I sat in workshop and absorbed still more information that very well might, in some incalculable way, help me become a better writer. These are all blessings. I am a lucky man.

I had an ardent wish today for six months. If I did not need to work for six months, from June through December, if money fell from the sky and all I had to do was write, I could finish this collection before the end of the year. I know it.

 

posted by: zithereen at April 20, 2004 07:16 | link | comments (1) |

The Runner.

That's the working title of my latest "story," which is right now only 2700 words into early creation. That's not true, actually. I began writing this story in December (blogs from that time discuss it, I think), and abandoned it after 6000 words-worth of bad story. Thing is, I wasn't able to forget about my main character. Every so often I found myself thinking about her, curious to see where a story might go with her at its helm. When I was returning to California a couple weeks ago, I discovered what element had been missing. She's a runner. Running carries with it all sorts of possibilities. There's a richness to that activity--or so I perceive it--that can be cast in a million different lights. Which is to say that it is not an objective nor an arbitray interest to have. Also her husband is an ornithologist, which she finds herself suddenly resenting. It's complicated. Perhaps I will post it on Storytime when I finish the draft. I must submit it to the workshop on Monday. It's the last story I will ever run through there. I'm happy about that but also a little sad. The program here has meant a lot to me, and I'm lucky to have had the chance to learn so much in such a short time.

Daily Show is on.  

posted by: zithereen at April 14, 2004 23:01 | link | comments (5) |

I feel like I should post something. Hits are up, people are reading, and I don't want to disappoint them by slacking off the blogging.

Thanks to those of you who were daring enough to offer dream analysis regarding my last post. I spent the day after the dream constantly distracted by it--I mean, it was so clear to me--still is--and this is rare indeed. And I was shocked, really, that my brain had somehow projected maternal characteristics onto my colleague. For all I know, she could be maternal, but I haven't seen it. Every time I see her now, I blush inside. If any of you would still like to offer up analysis or impressions, I'd love to listen. Pick me apart. Just one entry down from here.

I am taking tonight off. Exhausted, again. Spending three hours wading through the intracacies of Joyce's Ulysses can do that to a person. This means a night of internet, television, and wine. This also means a Wednesday of writing, taxes, and more writing. And some reading. I'm sure I'll get to watch a nice day pass by from my apartment windows. You people tell me how it is, out there in the world. I'll be working on a story about a woman who has an ornithologist husband.   

posted by: zithereen at April 13, 2004 21:04 | link | comments (3) |

I had a dream last night about one of my female colleagues. This is notable, in part, because I almost never remember my dreams, and the ones I do remember are pointless. For example, last week I had a dream that I returned to California to find the pizza I'd forgotten in my refrigerator two weeks earlier was still good, so I ate it all. What the fuck?

In last night's dream, a bunch of us MFAers were at a house, having workshop. Mark was leading the workshop, but it was a young, thinner version of Mark. The way he might have looked twenty years ago. As the hour drew late, all of us went to sleep together on a massive bed that easily fit all twelve of us (Mark remained in the kitchen, reading). There was no tomfoolery. We were all very tired and everybody fell asleep, even me. I woke up teetering on the edge of the bed. I remember thinking that I was trying to keep an appropriate sleeping distance from the women, so they wouldn't think I was trying to get sweet on them. But this one colleague of mine--with whom I have a cordial relationship at best, who has these beautiful chestnut eyes--she was awake. "Why don't you come over here? she said. She was lying on her side with a teasing smile on her face, the sort of smile I've never actually seen her have in my presence. She was under the covers and wearing jeans. Her question made me so happy, and I responded by scooting across the bed--suddenly we were alone on the huge thing--and snuggling up next to her. Her breath was loud and regular. I think we might have kissed, but no matter. I felt safe and happy. She was warm. She giggled.

Flash forward. It's later, I'm sitting up, my colleague is somewhere else. I hear voices in the kitchen, so I think it's morning. I look into a hallway just off the bedroom and see my mother walk in wearing a red pantsuit. She approaches a woman in a pink maid's uniform, who tells her that her son loves her. The maid bows and backs out of view. Then my mother turns around and walks away without noticing me.

End of dream. Thoughts?

posted by: zithereen at April 09, 2004 14:14 | link | comments (10) |

I am working on a story for my thesis about a man who abducts his daughter from school and wants to drive her to the Pacific Ocean. Problem is, they get caught up in some wildfires in Colorado. They're never really in any mortal danger from the fires, but they serve as an impediment, and the polar opposite of the father's dreams of water (this polar opposition being perhaps too simplstic a formula, I know, but I'm hoping the writing itself can convince readers of its viability). I envision this story as the final one in my collection, as it is told from a 3rd person point of view, with limited access to the father's thoughts. Most of my stories are about children--including adult children--who are either on the run from their parents or in the act of some incremental reconciliation. As one of my colleagues put it in her critique of another story (and only today), "here again we have a main character who wants to rescue his parents as much as he wants to run away from them." And that's me, kids, in a nutshell, and maybe even you, too. So it seems right to breach this child-driven narrative of the collection, this desire to rescue, and to arrive finally at a parent who places his daughter in danger, not to mention that he abducts her, all for a dream of pleasing her, of being the good parent he has so far failed to be. I'd tell you the end of the story, but 1) I don't want to ruin it for you, and 2) I'm not 100% sure what will happen. I'm almost certain, but not entirely. That's what's on my mind.

Also, I have never visited Delaware. I omitted that in my states-visited blog last week. So this means I have only visited 43 states, not 44.

posted by: zithereen at April 06, 2004 00:26 | link | comments (8) |

I had plenty of time to think during my drive back to California. Some of these thoughts I will not share with you, but I did arrive at two concepts for novels (thanks to the good people at National Public Radio, who inspired my ideas), thought about my dossier for future job placement, my thesis, the dim hopes this season for the Cincinnati Reds, and thought briefly about purchasing pornography. The purchase of pornography is not really something I do, but it can be tempting when you pass an adult video store every hundred miles, just off the freeway. There's something displacing and lonesome about a long drive, which creates both a unique atmosphere for a little deep thinking AND the desire for instantaneous intimacy. And the adult shops, they fill this need, I suppose. If I was a truck driver I'd probably be a porn addict. I'd have a DVD player in my cab on 24-hour porn rotation. Because being a trucker sounds like about the loneliest job on earth, and for all that you end up with a hernia anyway. I digress. I stopped at one of these roadside adult shops back in college, returning from a weekend near Cleveland. Perhaps you Ohioans know it: right off I-71, between Mansfield and Columbus. The Ashland exit, perhaps? The building itself was dark and small, no windows. On the property just behind it, a Christian group had hung a sign that said "Real Men Don't Need Pornography." I figured that was true and most of us aren't real men. I certainly wasn't; I was about 20 years old. The interior was smoky and lined with little bulbs around the different categories of porn. I wound up in the bargain bin and purchased "Sudden Urge" for about fifteen dollars. It's a film about a woman who has the sudden urge to have sex. This urge is as unpredictable as it is overpowering; she'll have sex with anybody. I finally threw the thing out about five years ago. And I did not purchase any pornography this time around. I promise.

posted by: zithereen at April 03, 2004 18:55 | link | comments (5) |