Cinco Cosas Mas

It's Monday. Shit's feeling real, especially in the news. That's why I'm sharing five more fucking awesome things--people and experiences and movements that I think are actively making the world a more ecstatic and intelligent place. Here goes:

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Art Party

1. Emma Watson and the HeForShe campaign:
   
   We all knew that Hermione was the brains behind Harry and Ron, right? Emma Watson, the young British actress that took on the famous role for most of her adolescence, has been appointed the UN Women Goodwill Ambassador, and as such, delivered a dynamite speech on what it means to be a feminist in 2014--and why it's time to involve young men and women in the solidarity movement for gender equality.
    

2. Anne and Mark's Art Party
   
   The Art Party is an enormous event dedicated to art of all kinds at the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds in San Jose. The main exhibition is a huge warehouse full of visual art--paintings, sculpture, performance art and music--though there are multiple outdoor tents, bars, food trucks, and a separate building known as the Spoken Word room. We attended the opening gala on Saturday and were lucky to catch the Flash Fiction Forum, as well as readings by local poets and journalists. There was a film series, a cupcake truck, and art cars decked out like ladybugs. In other words: proof that the art world is alive and thriving in Silicon Valley.
    

3. Emma Sulkowicz and "Carry That Weight"   
   
   Emma is a senior at Columbia University, where she tried twice to report an incident of sexual assault to campus, and once to the local police--to no avail. In an effort to shed light on the weight and impact of sexual violence, she has transformed this crime against her into a performance art piece by carrying a standard-issue dorm mattress around campus with her, everywhere she goes. As the weeks pass, she has elaborated on the "rules of engagement," which state that she is not allowed to ask for help, but she can accept help when it is offered. I can only imagine the effect that this has on a small liberal-arts campus in the middle of New York City; here, men and women are forced to witness as a young woman takes on a heavy burden. I have been following this story and am increasingly impressed with this artist's perseverance--both to herself and to a growing global movement. Go Emma.
    
4. Alison Bechdel, 2014 MacArthur Genius 
   
   So if you've never read Fun Home, you really need to. I loved Bechdel's comic Dykes to Watch Out For for years before I discovered her memoir, which is beautifully illustrated. Movie lovers might recognize the "Bechdel test," three criteria named by one of her cartoon characters that determine a film's real depth. Namely: does the film have at least two women in it? Who talk to each other? About something besides a man? Bechdel is 21st-century artist/writer (you might be sensing a theme here) whose work is honest, funny, and relevant.
    

5. Ed Damiano and the Bionic Pancreas 
   
   Ed Damiano is a biomedical engineer affiliated with Boston University--and he's also the father of a son who lives with type 1 diabetes. Damiano and his team are testing a medical device that is still seeking FDA approval--a "bionic pancreas" that consists of three major operating parts: a glucose sensor, a display monitor and a pump that delivers insulin. The machine tests the diabetic's blood sugar 288 times a day and makes minute adjustments to insulin dosages--attempting to mimic the day-to-day patterns of a functional pancreas. As I write this, I'm wearing a continuous blood glucose monitor and an insulin pump--two parts to this equation--but what Damiano hopes to achieve, before his son goes to college in 2017, is a device that is able to detect and treat all the highs and lows that diabetics experience throughout the day. Talk about fucking awesome.

ALS, JDRF & Rushdie

In 2006 I lived in a housing co-op in Isla Vista called Biko and shared a bedroom wall with Nu Driz, a master's student from Holland who was in Santa Barbara researching his thesis on Salman Rushdie. This is important. Nu cooked big house meals and fully committed to house party themes--and, if you were interested, would break down American literature for you, lickety-split. I had somehow been ignorant of Rushdie's exile until Nu sat me down and explained how entirely vital The Satanic Verses is and was and continues to be. This is all relevant.

I visited Nu and his husband Remy in their Leiden home a year after I graduated college, after spending the better half of a year in Spain. I was broke and took an overnight bus from Berlin to Amsterdam, spent a few hours at the Anne Frank House, scoured a few Dutch record shops, then hopped a train to Leiden, where Nu and Remy set me up in this gorgeous guest bedroom, which was (unsurprisingly) decked out in beautiful comforters and books, glorious books in various languages. I'll never forget how well I slept there, and how beautiful and kind they were, as were all their friends.

This week Nu posted his version of the ALS Challenge online. In lieu of dumping ice on his head, he took a note from Patrick Stewart and chilled some wine on ice, preferring instead to share an important fact: that eating fatty fish decreases the chance of acquiring ALS by 35%. To honor the fact, Nu shared a dinner of herring with Remy. He also took the opportunity to donate to another deserving charity, the Tuloy Foundation, a charity that helps street children. In his post, he suggested that I write something about another health cause--perhaps another foundation that needs attention.

I've written a lot about living with type 1 diabetes, an autoimmune condition that is diagnosed in roughly 30,000 Americans a year--JDRF estimates that 3 million Americans currently live with it. The United Health Group reports that type 1 diabetes accounts for $14.9 billion in healthcare costs in the U.S. each year. And that's assuming the people who need treatment are actually getting it. One of the first things you learn as an American with type 1 is that it is an expensive disease--and one currently lacking a cure.

In October, my family and I will be participating in the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation's Walk to Cure Diabetes for the thirteenth time. There have been years when I did not want to participate--not out of disrespect for the cause, or disloyalty to our supporters--but because fundraising walks can sometimes feel like an endless exercise, charging toward a goal we can envision but we can't yet touch. You start to wonder what impact it all actually has, and wish that curing a disease were as easy as snapping your fingers. Or, say, dumping a bucket of ice water on your head. When you test your blood sugar several times a day and take insulin every time you eat, it's impossible not to measure your life differently, at least on occasion.

But here's the thing: The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge has made a tremendous impact already--if not in immediately finding a cure, in raising awareness, in letting the world know that hey, sometimes truly shitty things happen to truly wonderful people, and there are small things we can all do to, you know, make things better, if not now, then perhaps someday. The JDRF Walks have not yet cured diabetes--but if you've ever seen those little white shoes up at drugstores, or seen a flyer for diabetes camp, or witnessed a mass of families in white t-shirts flocking around the California Capitol on the first Sunday of October--you'll know that every step has the potential to shift cells. If not now, later.

So - in an effort to embrace Nu's challenge, I'm doing a few things:

• My family and I are walking in the JDRF Walk to Cure Diabetes in October. (You can join us or donate by going here and searching for TEAM MALIBU PUMPERS.)
• I'm splitting my ALS donation in half--$50 to ALS and $50 to JDRF. Because, hey, we're both worthy.
• Nu, I'm going to finally sit my ass down and read The Satanic Verses. Because you told me to 8 years ago, and it's still on my list.

When in doubt: eat herring, drink wine, and donate to the charity of your choice. Because life is short.

5 Happy Things

There's a lot going on in the world right now. It bowls me over sometimes. Why not, then, share a few truly awesome things? Because Upworthy and Buzzfeed are cluttering our life with lists, and I want to share a few things I've become obsessed with because they're fucking awesome.

1. Put Your Hands Together
   PYHT is a weekly comedy show at the UCB Theater in Los Angeles hosted by Cameron Esposito and Rhea Butcher (who, incidentally, are two of the smartest, wittiest, most politically engaging comics I've ever heard). I've never been to the live shows but I subscribe to their free podcast feed, which features up-and-coming and established comedians, many of whom are likewise fucking awesome (read: Maria Bamford, Kyle Kinane, Jordan Morris, Beth Stelling, Ron Funches, etc.).
2. Jungle
   I stumbled across this British musical duo and have been listening to their debut album nonstop. Not only are their tunes groovy and great to write to, but their music videos are so stripped-down, featuring some casual yet complicated choreography, occasionally on roller skates. "Busy Earnin" starts with a group of dancers in an empty auditorium--so still they seem unreal before bursting into life. "The Heat" is a beautifully shot illusion, the camera zoomed in close on two dancers who appear to be floating before you realize that they are on skates. My current favorite is "Time," which stars two middle-aged male dancers dancing in their living rooms before challenging each other to a slow artistic duel. I sent a link of this video to my dad and father-in-law, with the hopes of inspiring them to dance:

3. Boyhood
While Ryan was at Burning Man, I decided to do something I'd never done before, and had always wanted to do: I went to the movies--alone. I chose Richard Linklater's new film because I was intrigued by his cinematic process, and had read that the actors had not seen any of the footage filmed over 12 years until the movie's release. I went on a Friday night and the theater was crowded--I was lucky to find a seat. More than anything I was impressed by how very real it felt. Authentic. Watching the relationships unfold and the actors age, I was flooded with a sense of nostalgia--nostalgia for a life I'd never lived, yet one that felt honest and possible, and in some ways, inevitable.

4. Castle Rock State Park
About a year ago, my friend Michelle introduced me to this great park off Skyline Boulevard in the Santa Cruz mountains. One of my favorite things about living in Northern California is that you never have to go too far to go far enough. Castle Rock is about 45 minutes uphill from where we live--a popular place for rockclimbers and backpackers alike. There's also a leisurely loop that Michelle and I have done that sports great panoramas with four or five different shades of green. I've since gone back with Ryan and at times by myself, enjoying the quiet, the smell of the trees, even Skyline's windy back roads, which turn auburn come October.

5. Snap Judgment
...is a badass NPR show and podcast created by Glynn Washington, based out of Oakland. Think This American Life meets RadioLab meets the Moth meets hip hop--and then turn up the volume. I've been a loyal listener since its inception in 2009, and I've gotta say, it's amazing how consistently Glynn and his team churn out fascinating, unusual, personal and compelling content. Most recently, their live San Francisco show featured a heartbreaking story about a man who lived next door to Xiana Fairchild, a young girl who was kidnapped in the late 1990s--followed by a hysterical how-to piece entitled "How to Set Up Your Mother's Profile on JDate," by Josh Healey. For someone who spends most of her day obsessed with stories, Snap Judgement always keeps me guessing--keeps me learning.

There are other fucking awesome things in life these days, many of them specific (my husband, my Amah, that completely quiet hour before bed when you can hear the sprinklers on outside and you just made low-fat sugar-free cookies and everything smells good), some of them in-progress (Play On Words is coming to SF! Fuck yeah!), even more of them still waiting to be discovered (No matter what you say, I plan to read Lena Dunham's book someday; I still need to read the latest Lydia Davis collection; Bread Loaf has an audio archive of all its conference lectures; wherever you go, there is art). I think it's important to end the week with a reflection of all the truly fantabulous people in the world, out there existing, doing cool stuff. What a relief.

Summer news

Between plane crashes, violence in Israel/Palestine, and surges of anti-Semitism in France, I think the world could use some good news this week. Here's what's new in my life:

Play On Words will be performing at LitCrawl, a special event during San Francisco's weeklong literary festival, LitQuake, on October 18. We could not be more excited and will be revealing our lineup in the coming weeks!

I was thrilled to see A Practical Wedding repost "Grampa and the Book of Wishes" yesterday. APW is a wonderful resource.

I'm also excited to read a few 100-word-stories at San Jose's Flash Fiction Forum on August 13. It makes me so happy to be finding more and more writers that live in my neighborhood!

Ryan is finishing his second week as a fellow at the Reynolds High School Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri. He is one of 35 teachers who were selected to learn the latest approaches to multimedia journalism--as well as methods for passing on this knowledge to their students. He's produced a few great pieces in the last 10 days, and yesterday their group uploaded a video entitled "The Purpose and Value of Scholastic Journalism." It is inspiring.

Tomorrow I'm going to visit Amah--and to share wedding photos (like the one below, taken by Natalie Jenks).

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When I spoke with her last week, we were discussing how long it can sometimes take to achieve artistic goals. She ended the call by saying, "But guess what? After almost 92 years, I've finally quit biting my nails!" There's hope for all of us.

Grampa and the Book of Wishes

About a month before we got married, I started a journal I call the Book of Wishes. My friend Christina had brought me back a beautiful notebook from Jeju, an island off the coast for Korea which is famous for its female divers. One day on my lunch break I started a list:

• I'm going to finish a book
• I want to train for a marathon
• A Dog! We need a dog!

And, highlighted in big letters at the very top:

• I wish that my grandparents are well enough to enjoy my wedding day

On Thursday, June 19, Ryan and I packed our car and drove to our wedding venue to get ready for the big day. I got my very first French manicure. Before we left our condo, I slipped two postcards in the mail for my grandfather Fred. We'd gotten the news that he wasn't able to travel to join us, so I wanted him to know that we were thinking of him.

The sky was glorious. My parents came bearing food, decorations, candles, framed photos of my grandparents, in-laws, friends and family--and a big, beautiful chuppah. My big brother flew out from Hawaii and got right to work creating block prints with our initials on them. My in-laws hosted us all at their beach condo and we ate pizza and watched the sunset over the ocean. Our dear friend Judi showed up with a car load of amazing decorations for the big day--green and blue mason jars, shells, burlap, vases, jewelry for me to borrow. Ryan's brother and sister-in-law were there too, and my sister-in-law Shelby was already on her way to join us. It was Thursday and I felt a new, wonderful sense of peace. So many of my favorite people were already beginning to gather. Our lives were buzzing with love--and not just our own. Since getting engaged I've begun to notice how quickly love multiplies, and what a relief that is.

Friday morning, June 20, we got straight to work preparing for the rehearsal dinner: decorating, cleaning, coordinating food and people. Our dear friends started to arrive, starting with Laurel, my best friend since womb, this wonderful woman who had collected all the dog doodles I'd created over the years and created a huge, beautiful, life-size dog out of cardboard--a dog bearing her own, cardboard insulin pump. Tiffany and Dumi arrived soon after, best friends, sisters really, both armed with shot bloks and secret stashes of flowers and confetti. I was walking over to the Lagoon House to join them when my parents pulled me aside quietly and shared the news: my 91-year-old grandfather, Fred Jackson, who had for the past year been planning to join us on the big day, had passed away that morning.

We stood under the shade of a big tree. Grampa had not been well for some time. He had a sturdy and proud disposition; he was an engineer. My grandfather was a man of clear and direct expression. Ryan and I got engaged on Christmas Eve 2012, and I remember when we shared the news with Grampa Fred, he smiled, but didn't seem surprised. As the night wore on, I started to wonder if he'd really heard what we'd said. And then, a few hours after dinner, while all of us cousins were in the dining room, he walked in and approached Ryan, speaking (nearly shouting), "Ryan, I'd like to see you in my office." We all watched as Ryan followed him down the hall and they shut the door behind them. I was astonished--and, I have to say, flattered. Their private conversation made our big news seem more official--more important.

Grampa retired the same year I was born. I knew him as an avid traveler. He and my grandmother Alice went to Australia, Europe, Central America, Canada. They went all over the United States. I got a birthday card from them one year that had a photo of them on a zip line in Costa Rica--in their 70s. For 20 years they made annual fishing trips to Alaska, pulling in 140-pound halibut well into their 80s.

Grampa was a gardener. He kept the most thorough fishing logs in the world--tracking weather, water temperature, bait, tackle, time of day, tides. He took beautiful photos and filled his home with pictures of the Canadian and American Rockies.

When Grampa lost Gramma, the woman he called his "peach," his wife of 66 2/3 years (his calculation), he said once that he would never consider meeting anyone else, because he knew that when he saw her again, "she'd know."

The thing about planning and executing a wedding is that time is premium. You spend months (in our case, 18!) planning, troubleshooting, coordinating, and then the weekend arrives and you realize that the hours will not slow down for you. You have to soak in what there is--feel the sun on your face, kiss your partner, your best friends, your parents, your in-laws, your cousins and their beautiful children.

That night, at our rehearsal dinner, my cousins, aunts and uncles were all together, alongside Ryan's family and friends. When my dad announced the news of Grampa's passing, he told us that when it became clear that Grampa was too unwell to travel, he had devised another way to join us in spirit.

When our big day dawned, and the fog lifted off the ocean, I thought of all my grandparents. My sweet Gramma Alice, who died a mere month after my brother's wedding in 2011, and who used to email me when I was in Spain simply to say, "Whatever you do, keep writing. Keep traveling." My darling Amah, who was unable to join us in person, but who got to watch our wedding videos (filmed by my sweet cousin Jeff Wayland), and who recorded the wedding processional for us at the tender age of 91. They were all there with us, in their own ways--Ryan's grandmothers too, in spirit. In many ways, I got my wish.

There are so many more things to say and feel about our wedding day itself. I'd like to broadcast them but in truth, they are private feelings, special things, dear to me and my husband, to my parents and in-laws, my best friends and cousins, to all of those who we love. We are reliving it all in the days that follow, and we are full of love.

I post this now in memory of all of you -- you who made it possible -- and with special thoughts toward my kind and wonderful grandfather Fred, who we will remember every year, on our anniversary. We love you, Grampa.

Amah's Haftorah

I'm pleased to announce that my essay, "Amah's Haftorah," has been published in COLLAGE Magazine, a gorgeous, multilingual, themed magazine edited and created by Marta Moreno and Lorenzo Hernandez. You can read the text, and see images of my beautiful Amah here. Flip the page and you'll see a piece written by my soon-to-be-husband, Ryan Alpers. We both sat down to write something inspired by the theme "memory," and independently submitted essays about our grandmothers--and each other. It is fitting that COLLAGE is being produced now, a mere 16 days before we get married.

Still We Rise

This has been a week of feelings. 

The shootings in Isla Vista last Friday night are still reverberating through my system. There's a lot I want to say, but I'm not even sure where to start. Instead I'm going to post this wonderful poem, "Still I Rise," from the one and only Maya Angelou, who we lost this week. It seems fitting.

Still I Rise

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

1978

With love and compassion to Veronika Weiss, Katie Cooper, Christopher Michael-Martinez, Cheng Yuan "James" Hong, Weihan "David" Wang, and George Chen.

Blog Hop: On Writing

My friend Ben Black invited me to participate in a blog hop--a series of writers answering questions about their writing. Ben writes really fast and furious, compressed and delicious short fiction. Ben’s work has appeared in Harpur Palate, New American Writing, The Los Angeles Review, and Smokelong Quarterly. He recently completed his MFA at San Francisco State University, where he also teaches. His stories have been finalists for the Omnidawn Fabulist Fiction Chapbook Contest and the Calvino Award.

I met Ben in a graduate creative writing course at SF State in 2009--and then again in 2012 when I moved to San Jose, walked into my first-ever Trials Trivia night, and there Ben was, sitting at the back of the bar. What follows are my answers to his questions, and the bios for 3 more writers whose work and aesthetics I admire. Thanks, Ben, for passing the blog-hop baton.

What am I working on?

I’m currently at work on my first novel, which I’m writing as a series of linked stories set in southern Spain. Technically this project started in my second year of grad school at UC Davis, but in truth these stories started in 2006, when I moved to the Costa del Sol to work as an Auxiliar de Conversacion at a Spanish elementary school. A few of these stories have been published--most recently, “The Africans” was published by West Branch Wired in January 2014. The remaining four or five are still lying dormant in my brain. I have yet to crack them open.

I also write very very short fiction in the form of 100-word stories. A number of these I have illustrated as postcards.

I also co-founded and co-curate a collaborative literary arts series in San Jose called Play On Words. This volunteer effort, which I run with Nicole Hughes and Melinda Marks, has really fed my literary brain while working in the corporate world. As a professional marketer I feel it my duty to mention that our next show is this Thursday, May 22, at the Blackbird Tavern. I’m a strong believer in group creativity and fostering a real sense of artistic community. It’s hydrating for your brain.

How is my work different than others in its genre?

I don't really ascribe to a genre. I suppose I aspire to be read as contemporary realistic fiction, whatever that means on a given day, though I don’t care that much about genre. I’m much more obsessed with language, character, place, and action. I’m fascinated by fictional topography. What characters look like when they’re fully realized and put in opposition to one another. I’m very interested in language on a literal and spatial level. I like learning how we acquire vocabulary, and how we keep it authentic. The stories I’m currently writing grapple with that weird gap in language acquisition--how sometimes we just don’t have the words for something, on a very basic level, and so we have no choice but to make decisions with our bodies.

My favorite writers make this look effortless, and they do it in their own unique and distinctive voice. I discovered Lydia Davis’ collected stories in grad school and they cracked me right open. Aimee Hempel, Danzy Senna, Jennifer Egan, Junot Diaz, Horacio Quiroga, Toni Morrison, Charles Baxter. These writers don’t ease you in; they sit you down and say, where on earth have you been?

How does my writing process work?

It changes, but typically I am the kind of writer who writes several drafts. Writing is such a series of contradictions for me. I love writing exposition but I hate reading it--so often I’ll write a very long first draft, wait a few weeks, then return to it and cut it in half. I once saw Dorothy Allison speak about character, and she said that when she is writing a new character, she writes a five-page monologue in that person’s voice, most of which she never keeps. The exercise is about knowing who this person is, and the kinds of words she uses. That piece of advice has stayed with me.

I also rely on critical feedback. I have a few friends from grad school whose opinion I hold very dear, and who are familiar with my goals and questions, and we try to swap work when we can. I also love generative writing workshops. I took a few taught by my friend Matthew Clark Davison (shoutout Matthew) that were such a breath of fresh air. It is a real treat to be in a room full of writers and to get their feedback.

Revision is key. If you give a draft long enough to breathe, and then return to it, revision can be a truly rewarding, fun exercise.

Why do I write what I do?

Because I have to. It’s an impulse that is never quenched, which makes it both unbearable and ecstatic.

Next week three writers I love will be carrying the Blog Hop torch:

Rachel Van Blankenship is a poet/photographer/designer raised in Northern California. She studied Photojournalism and Creative Writing at The University of Montana, Missoula and has recently relocated to Phoenix, Arizona to daylight as a Features Designer. Her nomadic tendencies have taken her to Oklahoma, Texas and Pennsylvania. "Menacing Hedge," "Gather Kindling," "Cease, Cows" and "JMWW" have published her poems and she placed 4th in the international "Flash Mob 2013" competition. She is still working on her first poetry chapbook and manuscript. (She knows she's slow). Visit her website and blog at www.rachelvb.com.

Marta Moreno and her partner, photographer Lorenzo Hernandez, have been editing COLLAGE magazine, an independent multilingual online publication, since 2008. She has also been the editor and coordinator of “Through the Eyes of Love”, a collaborative project that aimed to bring to the ESL classroom engaging literacy activities for the students. The result of this project was a workbook containing activities that serve as a supplement for a book of short stories written by Irish writer Siobhan Galvin. After spending several years teaching EFL in different Official Schools of Languages in Spain, Marta decided to move to London to work for the European Reminiscence Network, an organization that aims to promote best practice in reminiscence work, especially with people with dementia and their carers, and to share experience across national frontiers. She is also digitising the contents of Pam Schweitzer’s Reminiscence Theatre Archive at the University of Greenwich. Marta’s blog, “Remembering in London” reflects this experience together with her very personal view of a city that constantly stimulates creativity. A key element in this blog is Lorenzo’s exceptional photography.

Writer, performer, Zen-ster, Gray Performs is on a mission to love Who We Are (in all of its incarnations) with such wild abandon that she inspires in you the courage and enthusiasm to do the same. She was once described by a producer as, "not an ordinary human being… She has the spunk of Punky Brewster, the mind of General Patton, and the awkward neuroticism of Woody Allen. She is lively, honest–full of piss and vinegar." Read Gray’s blog at www.notkeepingscore.com.

On wisdom and fiction

"....what is wisdom anyway? It's usually just the feeling, 'I better not do that.' 'She better not do that.' 'We better not do that.' What is wisdom? It's just the word, 'No.'"

--Charles Baxter, in conversation with Jeremiah Chamberlain, from the fall 2012 issue of Glimmer Train (Issue 84)

I'm turning 30 at the end of this month, just three weeks before Ryan and I get married. May is always the most frenetic time of the year; birthdays, graduations, weddings. Days are long and endless and hot. Secretly I love spring sweat, the adolescent twinge of warm evenings, sitting outside after sunset with strawberries and root beer, everything so very ripe. I always wanted to get married right when spring met summer. I've never cared much for frills, pomp or circumstance; what was always important to me is the quality of the air. I want to be outside on my wedding day and know that we are all on the cusp. A very specific cusp, one I won't really have the words for until we're all there together.

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The space I typically reserve in my brain for writing fiction has been temporarily rented out to event planning--not just our wedding, but a career fair that attracted 350 job seekers to my place of work, as well as our third installment of Play On Words, scheduled for a week from tonight (May 22 at the Blackbird Tavern, and yes, in case you're wondering, you should definitely come, because it will be an amazing evening). (And yes, and that plug was 100% intentional.)

The weeks when I can't or don't write fiction, I imagine that creative space in my brain to be an empty radio station, nobody home but the microphones are still running. I tell myself that though I'd rather be writing, sometimes the leg work can be done in one's head. I see the hours of the day as all opportunities where my characters are interacting--that every hour I'm not with them, they're off doing the truly fiction-worthy things. Today I came across a 2012 issue of Glimmer Train that featured an interview with Charles Baxter, whose essays and lectures on craft are among some of the most informative and accessible that I've read. Like this:

"People spend much of their lives trying to repress and hide things, and I've come to feel that it's the business of fiction to bring up to visibility those things that families and social groups and individuals habitually hide. And you don't have to make explicit what's up to the surface, but something has to come up there."

I read this today and it hit me in the gullet. Fiction is often undervalued for its social and cultural power, but maybe that's because so much "marketable" fiction lacks that focus. What do we respond to? We respond to stories that call us on our shit, even if we lack the courage or self-awareness to realize that's what's going on. Controversy, intrigue, mystery, tragedy, hell, even romance--in some way we crave an honest mirror.

Sometimes I don't write because I'm not ready for that mirror myself.

And then I remember that I'm right there on that cusp--that the sun sets late, that the hummingbirds in the tree outside our bedroom can see us through the mirror, that when I go to bed and when I wake up I'm lying next to someone I love in an entirely new way every day--and then it's time to write.

In full bloom

Love. I'm just full of love this spring.

Springtime in Village Homes

Dayenu

My parents love to dance

Plovers

I spotted a rogue patch of yellow iris on my bike ride to work.

#playonwords gets legit

Besties.

Recording Amah

I recorded my grandmother Saralee today on my phone. It's become a bit of a habit. I am around her and all I want to do is to write it all down, all of the things she says. There's a specific cadence to the way she talks, the words she uses, especially when she's talking about music. We were listening to the classical radio station ("can you believe there's only one radio station devoted to classical music in all of Los Angeles!?"--the travesty) and she was lying on the couch, nursing a bad stomachache. You reach a certain age, she said, and everything hurts. And then the string section took flight and she sat up, her eyes open. Oh, Julia, she said. A thousand sighs in the way she says that word--Oh. Oh, Julia, the cellos in this are just exquisite.

Last night I drove 350 miles and arrived here late, crept into the downstairs bedroom, where she keeps her biographies of great composers. Her house is full of stories--drawings that my late grandfather did of her, seated at the piano, photographs of her with her 9 siblings, newspaper clippings and New Yorker cartoons and miniature pianos hiding out on bookshelves. I have been wanting to see her for months, and had been waiting for the right time to make the drive. At some point I realized that there would be no "right moment."

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Amah is 91. She is an incredibly important person to me. The kind of quiet I feel in her house is a quiet I feel nowhere else. Music is always softly playing. This afternoon I took a nap on her front porch, though my legs were far too long for her old swing. In my adult life I have done this a number of times--chosen a weekend with no particular agenda except to be in this house with my grandmother. Sometimes we sit in the living room and I make her tea and she talks about growing up in Cleveland in the 1920s. Other times we sit in the drawing room and she smokes a cigarette and does crossword puzzles out of a book. Sometimes I'll go on a walk, as I did today, down to the Pacific Palisades, where every third person is a skinny woman in yoga pants, and the view of the ocean is stunning, and when I come back she'll be sitting, as she often does, by the big bay window, reading. 

I am getting married soon. Amah wants very much to be there, and I want very much for her to be there, though more than that I want her to be well. My other remaining grandparent, my grandfather Fred, is in a similar state, though he won't have so far to travel. It is strange watching the people you love age. I want to freeze-frame my grandmother as she talks about music--to hear her say, Schubert wrote 600 sonatas before he was 30! And the things they will do to your heart. Oh, Julia.

That's why I drove 350 miles last night, and why, today, I propped my phone up close to her chin and said, "Do you mind if I tape your voice?" She nodded and laughed, and then I pressed record.

Featured on A Practical Wedding

The wonderful, amazing A Practical Wedding featured a piece I originally wrote on this blog, "Anatomy of an Injury." Big thanks to this female-driven organization, which produces amazing content that covers weddings, marriage, feminism, cultural traditions, family and so, so much more.

Spring

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An Ode to Pens

My love of writing is in part due to my love for pens. In junior high I was obsessed with a blue Bic pen whose ink I swore had magical qualities. I loved the way the pen's point dug into the surface of the paper; it seemed proof that writing was work, that by putting one letter in front of another, I had made an impact. Pencils were important too, because nothing felt quite so good as pressing my full weight into the lead, implying an emphasis that made bold and italics pale in comparison. Now that I spend most of my professional life perched at the edge of a keyboard, sometimes I’m surprised what can happen when I pick up a pen or pencil.

Ryan and I have an odd collection of pens hidden in various places around our apartment. My favorites are accidental mementos of places we’ve been together--the triangular green pen from Celadon, the restaurant where we dined after we got engaged, or the pens emblazoned with the logos of national parks where we’ve camped. There are fine-point pens for drawing and thick black pens for labeling and dozens of ball-point pens for writing checks, keeping records, and (my favorite) handmade recipe books. The best ones don’t just tell their own stories--they beg for you to write yours down. If I owned my own business, I’d market guerrilla-style, sneaking pens like these with secret messages on them into stores and restaurants.

Is it odd to praise pens in a digital medium? Perhaps. But consider for a moment what happens when you hold a pen. Its very architecture demands that you do something. When you write with a pen or pencil, there is no blinking cursor, just the infinity of blank space. There’s less pressure to stay in line. An implied permission to break the rules. You could take meeting minutes, outline a project proposal, draft a new campaign idea, or you could draw Shakespeare in dog form, or a map of all the countries you’d like to visit. A good pen is an invitation to create. And I’m always up for that.

Anatomy of an Injury

Yesterday, after running six miles along San Jose's Guadalupe River trail, I slipped on a sliver of glass on the sidewalk and landed, knee-first, on a broken tequila bottle. I sat for a moment on the concrete, staring at the jagged gash on my right knee, stunned. I've had my fair share of tumbles and falls, but this was different. The cut was clean but deep. I couldn't look at it. My iPod blared and my insulin pump was still safe on my hip.

I propped myself on the corner of the busy street and the trail, and within a minute had attracted a passing car. The driver was a man with a kind face. He asked if I needed help, and for a split second I considered saying no--I felt wobbly but was more shell-shocked than anything, and our apartment was only two blocks away. Some small voice inside insisted that I could do it--I could get home alone.

I looked at the man's face. He looked like someone's father. I thought of my own father, about the times he had been injured, and how he had, over time, learned exactly how and when to ask for help. "Yes," I said, "if you don't mind, I only live a block away."

The man, whose name was Frank, sat me down in his passenger seat and gave me a t-shirt to wrap around my leg. He asked me a few questions, and told me that I'd be all right, and I gave him directions to our place, and he insisted on walking me all the way to our doorstep. The white tee he'd loaned me was soon red and brown. When I got to our door I sat down and cracked it open. Ryan was eating breakfast and watching the Olympics, and when I saw the look on his face reflecting it all back--the blood, the dirt, the sweat--I panicked.

Ryan kicked into high gear, wrapping me in towels and getting me water, helping me test my blood sugar, and packing a bag of gear to take to the ER. I sat on our rug, focusing on a mental checklist of everything I'd need--ID, health insurance card, extra test strips, water, ibuprofen, cell phone, glucose gel. I thought of that day 13 years ago, when the doctor told me to pack my pajamas, that I'd have to spend the weekend in the hospital, and how long that had felt. I told Ryan to get a whole pair of clean clothes, and made him promise that no matter what happened at the hospital, he wouldn't let the doctors touch my pump.

He helped me hobble to the car and we drove to the ER. I thought about the placement of my feet on the run. Had the tread disappeared on my shoes? Were there rocks hidden on the trail? How, exactly, had it all been orchestrated? For the duration of the run, I had been thinking of all the things I had left to do in the four months leading up to our wedding--all the things we could afford, all the things we couldn't. All the things we needed, all the things we didn't. I had been thinking of scholarships I had worked hard for and still didn't get, meditating on all the half-finished stories saved on my laptop, the doodles I'd sprinkled around my office. I had been thinking about my nine-to-five job, daydreaming, really, of all the projects I'd love to do, if someone would finally give me the permission.

And then, suddenly, I was on the ground.

It must have been a slow morning at the ER because I was seen immediately. The doctor assured me that there had been no damage to the tendons or ligaments. They x-rayed my hands, which had spread evenly over glass when I fell. The x-ray technician told me that Ryan was cute, and I agreed. They wheeled me into a small room, where I was attended by a nurse and the ER doctor at the same time. They numbed my hand and my knee, and for twenty minutes one of them was on each side. By the time we left, I had 11 staples grinning in a jagged line across my right knee.

We stopped to get lunch on the way home, and I was aware of the stares we were getting. My white racing shirt had been stained with blood and dirt. My fingernails smelled of iodine. I hadn't eaten since the night before. I changed into a spare shirt in the car, which is when I noticed another a long scrape starting above my right breast and reaching almost as far as my belly button. I looked like I had survived a fight with a dragon.

Once home, I stood naked in front of the bathroom mirror, trying to figure out how to take a shower. I was amazed at all of the parts that still work. My knee still bends. I can bear weight. My hands are free of glass. My blood sugar is fine. The bruises will fade. Eventually the staples will be gone, leaving behind a stronger skin. I heard Ryan bustling in the other room, setting up our spare bed in front of the television so we could watch the Olympics. How lucky I am, to live this life, to be outside on beautiful spring days, to spend time with people I love, to have a partner like him, to have gainful employment. How lucky that Frank stopped his car, that Ryan was ready right away, that there was no wait in the ER, that my overall health is good. This was the year I'd resolved to no longer observe my anniversaries as a diabetic--in four months there will be other more important anniversaries to observe--and yet it seemed that February had still left its lasting impact.

Yesterday I was reminded that when we refuse to slow down, our bodies slow things down for us. I love and respect my body, imperfect pancreas, stapled knee, scraped stomach and all. I'm just grateful to Frank, and Ryan, and the ER staff, and the world at large, for reminding me to focus on the goodness around us, to breathe it in and soak it up, because it has a way of multiplying, once you stop to notice it.

This is a public thank you to Frank. Thank you for stopping to help.

It's going to be a good year, I can feel it

California wants it so badly to be springtime. It's a feeling I know well, though my hands are dry and chapped from my morning bike rides. A desire to be out in the world already, to make things happen. It is early February and 2014 is ripe for the picking.

Play On Words, Part Deux

This just in: Play On Words will be featuring an excerpt of former Steinbeck fellow Kirstin Chen's forthcoming novel, Soy Sauce For Beginners, at our February 13th show. Like us on Facebook to get more information on our next  show!

"The Africans" Finds a Home

I'm pleased to announce that one of my short stories, "The Africans," has been published by West Branch Wired, the online version of West Branch, Bucknell University's literary journal. The full text of the story can be read here.

"The Africans" is one of seven stories in my debut collection, Foreigner, which I hope to complete in the coming year.

Happy 2014!

Ode to a typewriter

Ryan bought a typewriter this weekend.

What he doesn't know is that I went through a typewriter phase while other girls were going through their makeup phases or maybe their horse phases. I discovered two big typewriters, glorious old yellow beasts, at my mom's work.

I was fifteen and without my driver's license, so instead I'd Rollerblade out between the olive trees to her office, where in the days when the Internet was still new, I'd sneak in the back and ratatat out little ditties on typewriters ten years my senior.

I remember the day when Mom introduced me to the World Wide Web. She opened the browser, and while window struggled to open, I went back to the typewriter, loving the hard give that each key gave as my fingers knocked them down. When the Internet was finally "ready," she suggested I look something up on it.

"Look something up?" I asked. "Like what?"

"Anything you want," she said. "That's kind of the point."

I sat at her computer and stared into its whiteness for a while, the blinking Netscape N spinning on the screen, then typed in the words "Winne the Pooh." Five minutes later a few images appeared.

It was like magic. Note the "like." There, indeed, were A.A. Milne's characters, but somehow seeing their likeness on the screen was not as satisfying as the methodical clack clack clack of the typewriter. Because writing on a typewriter was both more exciting than writing by hand and more validating--here was a thing that looked and sounded like Work.

So when Ryan brought him a typewriter and wrote me poems on it, I fall into a different kind of love. A kind of love reminiscent of long strolls between olive trees, the wonder of the Internet not quite on our heels, the sheer work of the world a joy to behold.

And I remember, too, the quiet contentment of this man with the confidence I can't quite describe. The confidence of a capable speller, even on a typewriter. Especially on a typewriter.

POW!

Play On Words’ premiere event at San Jose’s Blackbird Tavern was a huge success! We were thrilled to welcome 75 friends and family to the Blackbird’s gorgeous new show space on October 24 to kick off our new literary series. We’re grateful to our writers and performers for their excellent work, and to the gracious Blackbird staff for setting us up with a great stage, cozy tables and stocked bar.

The evening started with a moody contemporary short story by Ryan Alpers entitled “Predecessors.” It was performed by Melinda Marks and Adam Magill.

Our second piece was “Medea,” an original monologue written and performed by Melinda Marks.

Ryan Alpers interpreted an excerpt of Eric Sneathen’s engaging poetry series entitled “Glister.”

Our fourth piece was “Malleus Maleficarum,” a hilarious short play by Adam Magill, performed by Adam, Melinda, Doug York, Brian Van Winkle, and Jimmy Allan.

Jimmy Allan closed out the night with his reading of Leah Griesmann’s short story, “Slave.”

We are so excited by the work we saw performed, as well as our wonderful audience, that we are opening up submissions for our second show, to be scheduled (most likely) in February 2014. If you are a Bay Area writer or performer, and are interested in collaborating with us, please email us at playonwordssj@gmail.com to learn more. We accept original short fiction, poetry, monologues, 10-minute plays and creative nonfiction that is under 10 pages double spaced. The deadline for our next show is December 15, 2013.

Melinda Marks, Nicole Hughes, and I at the Blackbird Tavern.

This is reblogged from the Play On Words site. Check out our blog to learn more about us!