Filed under: Alphabet: A History
…quite simply, I was in love with New York. I do not mean “love” in any colloquial way, I mean that I was in love with the city, the way you love the first person who ever touches you and you never love anyone quite that way again. I remember walking across Sixty-second Street one twilight that first spring, or the second spring, they were all alike for a while. I was late to meet someone but I stopped at Lexington Avenue and bought a peach and stood on the corner eating it and knew that I had come out out of the West and reached the mirage. — Joan Didion
In the cab, my mother and aunt talked nervously. Actually we were in a taxi. My great-grandfather was a cabbie in D.C. for decades. But we were no longer in D.C. Here, these were taxis. They were yellow and checkered, like in the movies. We hailed it coming out of LaGuardia, and my mother and aunt were to help me move into my summer home in NYU dorms. University Hall and three unknown interns were to be my new home. My mother and my aunt would not shut up. This was more for them than it was for me, it seemed. I would have gone by myself if I could, but that was not going to happen. We rushed out of the tunnel, into the barely-there light streaming through the tall buildings. I craned my neck to look up and I saw a small patch of blue in between the skyscrapers. I didn’t feel confined; I felt free.
My previous experiences with D.C.—the city itself, not the region—were my grandmother’s stories of growing up in Northeast D.C. and my handful of trips to museums on fieldtrips or with my father. My one time into the city was when I was 18; my then-boyfriend and I went to some museums, watched the news crews surround the federal courts hoping to find Monica Lewinsky on her way out, then wandered through Georgetown in the late afternoon. There was a bomb threat somewhere that day and I came home late to a mother who was worried and furious, but that was nothing new.
But in New York, I would walk from Union Square to Times Square every day. Meandering through the green market, I saw vegetables I had never seen before. It took a trip into the archetype of urban life for me to see kale, resplendent and standing at full attention. Brussels sprouts like large, pale green marbles. I loved navigating the filthy streets, watching shop owners pull up the gates. One day I bought small, sweet strawberries and a bottle of balsamic vinegar. I ate the entire pint, doused in the tart syrup, feeling decadent and rebellious. My mother and grandmother would never do such a thing.
I loved the long sweaty walk to work, the soundtracks to my life blaring in headphones: Surfer Rosa, The Moon and Antarctica, a mixed tape I made that represented everything I loved and hated all at once, T’s greatest mixtape ever of ska on side A and funk on side B, a nod to a particularly schizophrenic night the previous spring. One weekend, T came down from outside the city, and we wandered through the East Village, eating pizza, sitting in Tompkins Square Park with the junkies, the combination of piss and flowers and car fumes all mixing around us. We talked about how one day we would figure our shit out, how happiness did really exist somewhere out of our reach, how one day we would get past all of this, how one day we might learn how to sleep.
I don’t know if we’ve answered those questions, ten years later. I tell myself I’ve made peace with those questions, and not knowing.
I was simultaneously a 60-year-old woman and 14-years-old all at once, and this is the only way I can resolve the manic love and lust I have for that entire summer, even though that was the summer I shattered like Humpty Dumpty. That summer was beautiful and shiny and sharp. I learned what it meant to grow up for every phone call promised bad news, and I learned what it meant to refuse to cope. I learned what it meant to lose a part of yourself and never get it back. I learned how to con, to use anyone and anything in order to convince myself that I was okay.
By the end of the summer, I no longer recognized myself in the mirror. Leaving the dorm by myself, I passed by my reflection and wondered why I had dark circles under my eyes, why I was so pale, why my eyes seemed unresponsive, as if I were someone else. I hailed a taxi and headed back to LaGuardia. The plane was delayed, and waiting in the airport, under fluorescent glare, I felt the earth falling away from me long before my plane took off.
Joining Everything in Between, Charlotte’s Web, Jade Park and Fog City Writer working through the alphabet with short, memoir-like pieces. It’s called Alphabet: A History.
* * *
Previous letters:
I used to read to find meaning in my own life. I would argue that most avid young readers, people who really get excited over books, do this; we search for some connection that tells us it is okay, that we too will survive and possibly even thrive. I’ve been in several discussions lately about how writers create narratives to make sense of life, and of course, The Paris Review’s TwitterFeed has had an abundance of quotes lately on this very topic.
Now I read to escape, to see how its done, to have a moment of beauty. This sense of connection rarely happens anymore, and I don’t miss it. I don’t miss making every book about me, the reader, and I like reading books where I engage because of the writing or the ideas, and not psychological connections.
When I read Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, I was sitting on a beach, reading this graphic narrative, getting made fun of for being a lit geek, and my stomach flipped a few times. My grandfather resembled the narrator’s father in many, many ways. He obsessed over the house and garden. He loved shopping and poetry. He and my grandmother were polar opposites. Sure, more than one marriage has been based off the partners’ quirks, and survived, and more than one heterosexual male in the world has liked shopping and maintaining the house. But something in Bruce Bechdel’s character reminded me exactly of my grandfather–not the least that he too sought narratives that made sense of life, and made life bearable, despite the burdens he carried and could not admit.
Last week I read Stephen Elliott’s The Adderall Diaries. Again, something locked on to me. I can’t get this book out of my head. When he read, he talked about how he had made some peace with his father, and how the idea that he is not the person in his books is bullshit. The first is something I can’t comprehend, though I admire it on some level and wish desperately for it on another. The second turns all of my writing notions upside down; there is no escape, not even in memoir, and you have to own it. That makes writing much more risky, and I love it, and yet I’m also terrified.
And now, I’m reading Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle, thanks to Jezebel’s post yesterday. I read this, ran to the library, checked it out, and started reading. Oh. My. I have no clue what’s truly happening, but Merricat and Constance and Uncle Julian bear a surprising resemblance to a certain three-generational household in a creepy huge house in a nice little neighborhood where everyone stares, and the most functional one may have been the one you really had to watch out for.
So maybe I connect with books about home or lack thereof, and dysfunctional families–but I assure you, not all. (Mama Denise, where are you when I need you for a soul-crushing eyebrow raise, and reassuring pat on the hand?) I’m sure too, that in this period of change and introspection I’m experiencing, that I have a heightened sense of connection and empathy.
I find it reassuring in a way, that I still can connect with a book like this. My students discuss books and stories and poems with abject distance (okay, some, not all), and talk about how a text is “relatable” despite their dispassion. But now and again someone will come in, mind blown. Amazed. Often it’s with a text that I don’t know is capable of doing that simply because it’s never happened before to me, or students I’ve had thus far. And I love provoking that reaction–but often, I’m a little jealous too. I thought I might be too jaded to have that reaction anymore.
There’s hope for us all, I suppose.
Filed under: Alphabet: A History
“How will you spend ETERNITY?” asks a giant black billboard on I-95 North. Not 200 yards later, a white and red billboard says, “Chick-Fil-A! NEXT EXIT!!” I laugh on our silent car ride.
The colors are just starting to change on I-95; it’s been a wet fall on the East Coast and that delays and mutes the colors. The clouds are puffy and heavy all at once, mottled and three-dimensional even from my view in a moving car.
I remember a trip to Roanoke in 1999. We were on the other side of Virginia then. We were in Matt’s white Acura with the In-and-Out Burger sticker on one side, and the Weezer sticker on the other. I can’t remember why we were headed to Roanoke that day—to the mall, perhaps, or a movie, or to get the hell out of dodge for the day. The sun came through the clouds like alarms, in bits and pieces. We listened to the Get Up Kids and Sunny Day Real Estate, only it wasn’t particularly sunny and I wasn’t getting up much those days. I remember us not talking a lot on the drive. I remember in those days he spent a lot of time trying to cheer me up. Mostly I stared out the window looking for something.
Another ride, probably the fall before. This time with my then-roommate. Same sky, same feeling. The trees that year were on fire in the Blue Ridge Valley—it had been dry. I couldn’t help but be happy around her, at least to a degree, when her God was joyful, benevolent and clearly streaming through the clouds, Old-Testament style. We did not talk about what happened earlier that week or what would happen now, and we wandered around the Roanoke mall that afternoon, eating Panda Express and buying glitter body cream.
The billboards then around that stretch of I-81 were few and far between: White’s Truck Stop, Aunt Sarah’s Pancake House, the occasional public service ad. Most advertised the space for sale. Some didn’t even do that—skeletons of billboards, advertising nothing. This part of Virginia has little to advertise, and I could not help but feel the same: I was stripped, fading, falling apart.
Here and now, on I-95, is totally flat. Then and there, was mountainous. I’ve always wanted to find fall beautiful but all I feel is a sense that this is my eternity, and that stupid billboard drove it home for me. Flat roads, bumpy roads, hilly curvy roads. Riding in cars, staring out the window searching for anything, with the driver next to me, trying to cheer me up.
Joining Charlotte’s Web, Jade Park and Fog City Writer working through the alphabet with short, memoir-like pieces. It’s called Alphabet: A History.
* * *
Previous letters:
Filed under: Alphabet: A History, blog business, critical thinking, fiction, introverts, writers, writing advice
Lists of ideas and things, because this blog isn’t defunct.
- I am still working on Alphabet: A History on the letter B. It started as one thing and now is another. My goal is to have it up by the end of this week. (Thank you to all the links–I will update this soon and include all of you wonderful people.)
- Am climbing out of the October hole. Teaching has been like triage, except thrown into the usual mix is me trying to keep my head above water not because I’m swamped but because I have been drowning.
- Went to see Stephen Elliott read from The Adderall Diaries at the base of the Lincoln Memorial. Small showing but that was okay by me, since large groups of people and me don’t seem to mix well lately. I forget that writers I admire are also people too. Went out with the odd assortment of people afterwards and felt happy to know this random group of people could happen in D.C. on a weeknight–something I forget the older I get. Found the whole night energizing, in a “get off your duff and start writing again, you lazy fucker” way. Saw someone I haven’t seen in a while. Made a writing promise I intend to keep. (For the record, you should go buy The Adderall Diaries right now. NOW. And go see Stephen Elliott read on his helter-skelter book tour. And give him a couch to sleep on if he needs it.)
- The event I helped organize went off pretty well today. Got to see Alison Bechdel read. I wished I could have stayed to get my book signed, tell her she’s awesome, all that, but after but after 7 hours of people, I was done.
- I take a big dive on Thursday, from a high up springboard where I can’t see how deep the pool is. I’m not looking forward to it but I know it’s time.
October is almost over. Thank. Goodness.
Filed under: Uncategorized
I’m back on Facebook. I am weak. I have no discipline. I missed people. It’s fall. I’m losing it a little.
My mother and grandmother would always say, “You’re not from Annandale. You’re from Alexandria.” Our zip code straddled the invisible line from Alexandria city and Fairfax County.
Even back then I knew that the distinction they made was something they told themselves to feel better.
I’m from Annandale. Actiondale. Nowadays, K-Town, home of the best Korean B-B-Q you’re going to get around D.C. My grandmother’s house was set back in a quiet neighborhood of large grassy lots, houses that looked different from one another, shaded by huge oaks that survived the blight back in the early 80s. As you progress further towards “downtown” Annandale, there’s a lot of ramblers, homages to 1970s architecture, and strip malls.
People ask where in D.C. I’m from, and if they’re from the area, they’ll ask, “Where did you go to high school?” The D.C. natives who went to public school only know the city public schools. The D.C. natives who went to the prep schools only know the prep schools. The kids from Fairfax County usually say, “Ooooh.” Even they’re not sure where it is; if they are, it’s not a good thing.
Annandale High School was a bastion of conflicting cultures: first-generation kids searching for a place (be it in the all-AP crowd, or gangs), the classic Northern Virginia All-American jocks, the misfits. I was an over-achieving AP dork, I twirled flags, I edited the newspaper. But while these things may have defined me some, they didn’t define where I fit. The whole school never gave me any sense of place. Didn’t know then, still don’t. I don’t know where my place was.
I missed my 10th reunion, which happened just down the street from where I live now. Some of the people I still keep in touch with asked where I was, why didn’t I go. It wasn’t a statement of anger or protest. I just couldn’t figure out why would I go. Didn’t really know anyone that was going. Didn’t really care. Annandale sits on the periphery of my mind; a state of mind, rather than a place. It could be anywhere in middle America, it could be suburban Maryland, it could be Jersey. It’s the generic anywhere that formed me, and yet it didn’t form me at all.
Passing the K-Mart and Wendy’s in downtown, past the old mom-and-pop cleaners, the fire station, the Safeway, I feel disconnected. Hi, Starbucks where I worked. Hi, Memco-where-mom-worked-then-Bradlee’s-then-Hechinger’s-then-Home Depot. Hi, 7-11 near the high school where I drank a lot of coffee. Hi, old friend’s mom’s house. Hi, public library. Bye.
My husband always asks why I never know where I’m going when I drive around Northern Virginia.
“You grew up here!!” He always says, exasperated with me.
I did, and I didn’t. I spent my childhood waiting to leave.
Joining Writing Under a Pseudonym in working through the alphabet with short, memoir-like pieces. It’s called Alphabet: A History.
Filed under: qotw
After reviewing scholarly sources, the future Democratic Party leader in my class raises his hand, eyeing me with suspicion.
“So, Professor, did you write an article on African-American crime?” (I would link, but I’d prefer that my blog not link to the article.)
I paused, confused. I can see others in the class nervously awaiting my answer; clearly this has been discussed in the dorms and in the dining hall. I realize what this is about.
“No.” They breathed a collective sigh of relief. “For the record, I also did not write an article on ‘the myth of campus rape’. Proofread my name, kids–it’s spelled slightly differently.” They laughed.
“I didn’t think so,” the student said. “But I wanted to check.”
A few years ago a colleague–one who had me as a graduate student–cornered me in the copy room.
“Did you write that article on campus rape?” She asked, rather aggressively. I was familiar with it, and I think my jaw hit the ground.
“Really? First, my name is spelled differently. Second, really?” She stared at me.
“Of COURSE not,” I said.
“Well, I had to make sure,” she said.
What I really wanted to ask my class, and my colleague, was: does that even SOUND like me? How in hell is that my voice? What part of “I’m not a conservative think-tanker” don’t you get?
(We didn’t have time for a discussion on voice.)
Filed under: Uncategorized
Myrna Harrienger and Nan Uber-Kellogg, in “An Ethics of Difference”, wrote: “You can ask students, what if all you can say about life is what you do? What if all of life is like that?” I ask my students that a lot.
Four years ago, one of my former students, a poised and intelligent 19-year old woman from Los Angeles—wrote an essay about this. About how up until her senior year in high school, she was a soccer player, because she played soccer. At the beginning of this year, however, she was cut from the team because she was not as skilled as some of the incoming freshmen. Her first draft was rife with aggrandized statements about what she learned from this lesson. I sat down with her and told her I appreciated that she wrote about a painful topic.
Then I asked her whether she really thought she learned a lesson. She was flustered, and said that of course she had. I then asked her what lesson was that. She stuttered and said she wasn’t sure. I asked her if it still hurt.
“Of course it does,” she replied. “I always thought of myself as soccer player, and suddenly I was told I wasn’t allowed to think that way anymore. I had to figure out what I was beyond soccer, and even now, sometimes, I’m still not sure.”
I told her that was what her essay was really about. I have this conversation, of sorts, almost every term, with every student, in some form. And I go through, day after day, term after term. Things happen. I move through life checking off my list and thinking about what will be when my list is complete, but it never really is complete because there’s always a paper to grade, dishes to wash, a dog to walk. Something.
I woke up yesterday and wondered what my essay was really about. And by essay, I mean life. (more…)
I have had some legendary classes that I could not get to shut up even if I tried. Generally speaking, that doesn’t bother me. The students figure a lot out as they talk, and even the quieter types eventually join in. With these kinds of classes, I throw something at them and then I try to guide the conversation as needed, but often I don’t have to do even that.
However, I am in a class right now discussing stories that I love–I mean, that I LOVE LOVE LOVE. I have a feeling this in itself is stifling the conversation (like the time I presented a Joan Didion essay to a group of freshmen and they stared at me like I had just said, “translate this into Greek”). No one really wants to talk. I can’t tell if it’s because they’re iffy on the stories–which is fine–or because we don’t yet have a common vocabulary for the stuff we’re discussing–which is also fine. But the times I’ve used discussion questions in the past, the discussion felt forced; I think it has to do with me not writing good discussion questions.
How do I write better discussion questions, and how do I get those questions to prompt “natural” discussion, rather than TeacherAsksQuestionsAndStudentsRespond “discussion”? I’d love any ideas or suggestions of things that worked for you, as a teacher or as a student.
