if you wind up in Fargo, you went the wrong way

Their house is in the middle of nowhere. The directions to find it included things like silos and tar roads.

Take the second tar road on your right.

I’d turn down road after road to see the dots of gray gravel poking up above the snow or the streaky black of a plowed county highway. But changing direction from North to West didn’t do much for the scenery other than reposition the sun. Flat and endless and white.

I got lost. It took me four hours instead of two and about a dozen phone calls to Josh with my hopeful coordinates. Apparently there are two “county road 9”s. Since you go through two counties. Each having at least nine roads to call their own. Wound up in Rockville or Paynesville or something like that. When I finally stepped out of the car and said hello to their dog Josh asked me if I had to pull over to cry.

“No.” I laughed. “But I did stop to pee in Belgrade.“

Inside there was hundred year old wallpaper and original woodwork and a one year old baby I was meeting for the very first time. Christa made lunch of dates and dark chocolate, tea, cheese and whole wheat crackers. It was the best everything I’d ever tasted, having been hungry for 3 hours and out of water for two.

Christa is forever linked to my old coffee shop. She had front row seats for the dramatic eight month decline of the little shop on the busy corner in South Minneapolis. She was the only one who knew all the players. Knew the day to day. Held my hand and sat next to me while I tried to figure out how to stay afloat for another month. She taught me how to smoke and got me drunk on days when getting drunk was the only sane thing to do. She helped repaint my house and move all the furniture so it felt like mine again. She’s the brightest colored character in a grayish blue time.

She moved right after I moved. Moved to the country to put her Master’s Degree to work, saving the world one migrant family at a time, bringing her big city smarts back to the barely incorporated township she grew up in. They don’t have internet access and her cell phone reception is sketchy. We talked sporadically when she was in the city or staying late at work. But like all great friendships, the pause button works flawlessly. No time actually passes, but your hair grows and you can have babies. It’s some kind of perfect magic.

The catching up was easy and laughs over things we never collectively thought would reach the realm of funny were so healing and life affirming. If I can say that without sounding like a wannabe guru. If even saying that can capture all the wow.

The little baby who took to me gleefully fast won my heart as quickly. She has messy hair and soft cheeks and shares her Cheerio’s with near strangers. Seeing Christa as mom and hearing her talk about it so smartly. So thoughtfully. That little girl is one of the luckiest babies in the world.

Sparked from the picture perfect afternoon while driving home with crystal clear directions and a painstakingly crafted map it hit me for real this time. A gratitude for the eight months of bluish gray and how it’s come to show light on the best parts of who I am. I’ve flirted with this idea. Hoped for it. Tried it on. But it never stuck. Too early. Too insincere. I wanted to let go of the ick and fill up on the good but that takes time and patience. It happens under the radar maybe. While you are unaware. Pops it to the surface as a bona fide revelation while driving back to Minneapolis at 4pm on a chilly Saturday afternoon. I almost pulled over. I almost picked up the phone to call everyone I know with the news. But instead, I just drove.

And talked to myself.

And let it wash over me again and again like a really great hug.

just like that

It was fall. 2004. In Minneapolis. I owned a coffee shop there. And that’s where I was. We were on a busy corner - 42nd and Cedar. Cedar is an exit from Hwy 62 and a main route to get to downtown or the University of Minnesota. Even in the middle of the night Cedar was still busy. But this was in the afternoon, about 4.

The shop would empty out about then. The neighborhood 9 to 5ers had come and gone with their afternoon pick-me-ups. The stay-at-home moms were making grocery lists or waking toddlers up from their afternoon naps. And in fall, in the Midwest, 4pm is sunset. The first hint of gray or orange light hits the pavement and by 6pm, it looks like 2am. Streetlights on and inky skies.

It was sometimes nice and sometimes uncomfortable to be alone in the store then. Leaning on the counter and watching the start of the evening commute I was just as likely to feel lucky as lonely. The important things in my life had been caught up in a windstorm that teased me with false endings and easy solutions. Sometimes it felt like 100 mile an hour winds and sometimes it felt eerily calm with the glowing green sky us Midwest kids know as signaling trouble.

I think I felt a little wistful. I remember I had my head on my hand and I was looking out the windows onto Cedar Avenue. If I had to venture a guess, I would go with lonely over lucky. I wasn’t looking forward to summer being over and the bare trees and leaf clogged sewers were impossible to ignore. It wasn’t that I loved that summer. It was just I didn’t want this tornado to stretch into another season. I didn’t want time to pass. My biggest wish was for a pause button just so I could take a breath. Or a thousand breaths. But there isn’t a pause button. No matter how hard you look.

Out the window there were flashing red lights. Police cars. No sirens, just lights. They had sped up to the intersection. Each driving on the wrong side of the road to beat the traffic to the stop light. One from the north, one from the south. They each hit the breaks and spun to block all traffic on Cedar from entering the intersection.

I lifted my head from my hand and watched. The intersection was quiet. No cars on 42nd. The police officers, the commuters, me. We just waited. For something. To happen.

A male deer, big, antlers, lost. Came running down 42nd. Fast and swift and graceful. And unharmed. It galloped through the quiet intersection and I knew that the busy intersection on Chicago and the ones on Portland and Park were all quiet too with silent police cars and flashing red lights. His path anticipated. He passage guaranteed. The fallen leaves being kicked up in his wake.

nine is my lucky number

I have 94 days left.

I’ve used up six.

I’m writing a book.

Day One was deciding to write it. Completed by lunch.

Day Two was carving out specific times to write. I made a schedule.

On Day Three I was supposed to decide what to write about. And I did.

Day Four was more of the same which was good because I actually hadn’t really decided on Day Three.

Day Five was advice. “Do not bore the reader.”

Today is Day Six. Dissect a book you love. See what makes it tick. I picked The Catcher in the Rye and have fallen in love with Holden Caulfield for the twenty-third time. “I was wondering where the ducks went when the lagoon got all icy and frozen over. I was wondering if some guy came in a truck and took them away to a zoo or something. Or if they just flew away.”

I’m going to tell you something.

I’m a little scared. I don’t need a pep talk or a pat on the back. But holy fucking shit, when writing matters, it’s terrifying.

I bet you knew that already though.

Letters are my currency. It’s comfortable to live inside them. To let them drip from my fingertips. I’ve been doing this since I could. Writing on wide ruled paper with a pencil as round as a popsicle. Telling myself stories so I could fall asleep at night. But.

Dang.

This idea. This story. It’s personal. It’s humbling. My antagonist is my real life dark cloud. To give that face and voice and body. To say hello? To invite it in?

I don’t know.

Tomorrow is Day Seven. “If you create a story that has real meaning to you, chances are it will have real meaning for the rest of us.”

babble

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I don’t have a car. I walk to work. And home from work. To coffee and back. To the store for apples and cheese and then home from the store with apples, cheese, crackers, cookies and Cap’n Crunch. If I added up all my walking each week it adds up to about 25 miles. More on busy weeks. Like weeks where I want to wander down 5th Street because it reminds me of Chicago. Or weeks were I want to smell the market and buy a French magazine.

I guess what I’m really trying to say is that I spend at least 8 hours a week walking. And 99% of those 8 hours are spent alone. They are quiet. No music or iPod. Just me and which ever bag I grabbed that morning with whatever stuff happens to be in it. And my Chuck Taylors. And my sunglasses. I daydream the whole time. When I get home, there will be entire stretches of the walk that I don’t really remember. Sometimes I almost get hit by cars. And I bumped into a newspaper box once. My inner life is quite rich.

You know, what I’m trying to say is that there is some part of me that works on sorting out problems that I don’t really know much about. It’s like the flip side to my daydreaminess. It grabs my worries, puzzles, ennui and takes them out to lunch and figures out what’s really going on. It formulates and draws charts. Power Point may or may not be involved. But when it’s figured something out, when it’s gotten the a-ha, it sends it home. Sometimes fully formulated. Sometimes just a word or snapshot. Suddenly I have the key. Or suddenly I have the question.

But maybe what I’m trying to say is that this is how T::h::e F::o::r::e::v::e::r S::u::r::v::e::y happened. I was walking home. Day dreaming. Things being working out. And it popped to the surface. Whispered almost. T::h::e F::o::r::e::v::e::r S::u::r::v::e::y. “Hey, what’s that?” I said to no one. “What does it mean?” No one said back. I wondered what it was. What it could be. It took me a few days to figure it out. But I decided it’s a quest. It’s a search. An Important Task. It’s me finding the thing that motivates me the most. Love.

I know what I want to say. I want to say that this is how it all started.

alaphabet super

I got some writing advice today.

I was lamenting about how I want to write a book but can’t seem to get past the ideas. The free floating nameless characters. The makeshift plots that change and shift and only make sense to me. My total lack of respect for gra. Mmar. And sentence. Structure. I get mired down in it. Stuck. The idea of sustaining 300 pages on one idea. One story. It sticks me to my chair. My hands in my lap. Keyboard quiet.

I was wishing out loud for discipline.

And she, she being an editor who I love at a newspaper worth fighting for, she said I write like Faulkner or Joyce. That it flows. That I have a voice. I said this then and I will say this now. Those comparisons are clearly too kind. They are generous and wonderful and day making. But too too kind. After such a head pat. After such a glowing review. She said:

Beware of structure. It’s like a straight jacket that you might not be able to take off.

She’s watched it. She’s lived it. Writer after writer putting it on. Tightening the belts. Living inside an inverted triangle. Tidy. Clean. They get stuck in the proper of it all. And set aside their risk taking. Their shooting from the hip. Signing up for writing seminars 5 years later where they are encouraged to write like they use to. You know. When they didn’t know how they were supposed to. She said:

Tread lightly.

I think a lot about writing. About what I’m supposed to do with it. If there is a book inside me. Or if this blog lives by itself. When I talk about writing, I talk about how it just seems to happen. 15 minutes. No edits. Maybe spell check if I’m feeling nice. And while I don’t write every day or even every week, I pay a price. An antsyness. A slow trade of inner calm for outter busy. Until the scales are tipped too much. Until the balance is threatening. And I sit down with my iBook on my lap and.

Write.

rehab

But but but. Why. Why. You said. But. You. Said. Again and again. But but but. Why. Why. You said. But. You. Said. Times ten. Times ten thousand. Like picking at a scab. Like stepping in front of a bus. Like hitting myself over the head with a baseball bat. But but but. You said. But. You. Said.

We fought Sunday morning.

And as all those words left my mouth. The second they hit the air. The instant my lips let them go. I was thinking. Stop. I don’t want this. Why am I here? What am I fighting for? It’s almost in slow motion. I’m sure my eyes looked vacant. I don’t remember what I was doing with my hands. Walk away. Walk away.

“What do you want?” He was exasperated with me. I could see it in his eyes. Hear it in his tone. He was looking right at me. Stopped what he was doing. I just wanted to close my eyes and disappear. Why am I here? What am I fighting for? The panic of i-don’t-know sunk my stomach. Like swallowing a lead weight.

I didn’t say that I didn’t know though. I don’t know what I said. But I know it wasn’t that I didn’t know. And while I was saying what I can’t remember I was thinking that I’ve been here before. These words. This fight. I’ve had it before. I’ve had it with him. And with him. A slide show of show downs. Me. Doing. This. Again and again. Different boys. Same me.

“What does it feel like when you’re fighting?” she asks me.

“I’m in it. I’m articulate. I can be unfair and hurtful. It has my attention. But I don’t know why. As I’m fighting, I’m wishing I weren’t fighting. I want to walk away.”

“But you don’t.”

“I don’t.”

“Does it feel like you’re fighting for your life?”

Remember in Me and You and Everyone We Know when Miranda July goes back to the shoe department. Remember how he burnt his hand and it’s wrapped in gauze. Like a mitten. And she asks him what happened.

“Whoa, what happened?” Miranda July asks.

He tells her she can have the long version or the short version. And she picks the long version without the slightest hesitation.

“The long one.” Miranda July says.

He says the long version is he was trying to save his life but it didn't work. She asks him what the short version is.

“Wow. What’s the short one?” Miranda July asks.

He says I burnt it.

It’s just like that. It’s exactly just the same as that.

“Does it feel like you’re fighting for your life?”

“Yes.”