Teresa

Gradual Thaw

As many of you know, it’s been a big snow year in south central Alaska. A few big storms left us buried early on, and due to the cold temperatures it never melted. It just kept adding layers until finally, sometime around the spring equinox, we crossed over into the thawing stage.

It hasn’t been as messy a breakup as some years; we haven’t had much rain or a thin layer of volcanic ash on top of the snow like we had a few years ago when Mount Redoubt blew. That year when the sun came out the snow melted so fast that the streets flooded. Even the mountains across the bay lost their white cover in what seemed like a matter of days.

But this year the thaw is gradual. Every few days we’ll discover something new in our yard that has been buried all winter—a missing shovel or the dogs’ Frisbee. And the melting is uneven. The snow drifts were highest on the west side of the house, which means that the crocuses are still under nearly three feet of snow. In the front yard, where the sun blazes against the blue siding of the house, some nice heat is generated. There a few blades of grass are turning green and the chives are poking through, long enough already to add to the scrambled eggs.

* * *

I think about my dad this time of year. It was five years ago in April when we realized he was dying. By the time they’d diagnosed him with Multiple Myeloma it was too late. That year, in the time it took to go from winter to spring, I had to adjust to the idea of my father being gone forever.

One of the hardest things, one of the things I never admitted to him, was that I don’t believe in heaven. When I said goodbye to him, it was really goodbye. I didn’t have any notion of all of us someday feasting together at a common table situated somewhere on streets paved of gold in the sky. It’s a lovely idea, a hopeful idea, but I can’t make myself believe it—even though I’ve tried.

Since my dad’s been gone I’ve been able to be more honest about my beliefs, or, as the case may be, my non-beliefs. While he was still around I didn’t want to risk the possibility of him thinking less of me. And once he was gone it didn’t take long for me to find the courage to voice my opinions. The year after he died I published my first piece of writing ever, and it had to do with the offense I felt at all of the hell-fire talk my family had to endure at the ceremony outside of Telluride when we scattered his ashes. It was a traumatic event for me, but it was the beginning of my own gradual thaw. Things I’d kept hidden away began to surface. They’re still surfacing.

I’ll never know exactly how things would be if my dad were still here. Would I have figured out a way to be honest with him about my beliefs? Would I be as outspoken about my tendency toward agnosticism? Sometimes it’s easier to hide the truth than it is to hurt the people we love. I like to think that if we’d had more time we could have navigated our way through our differences. My dad may not have understood me, or my way of thinking, but he loved me and I loved him. And love has a way of superseding belief, if we let it.

Vexation of Spirit

Human beings are complicated creatures. Each of us can define ourselves a hundred different ways—in relation to our families, our jobs, our interests, our gender, our appearance. Some of the traits that define us stick for a lifetime, but part of what makes us complicated is that we’re ever-changing.

Last year in May I was feeling content. I even wrote about how I was happy to be here, in my home, with my family, my job and my dogs. I’m pretty sure that some Prozac popping person wrote that blog post with its proclamation of unabashed contentedness. It certainly doesn’t fit how I’m feeling nowadays.

I don’t like to complain about the weather. I know it accomplishes nothing. But this winter is getting me down. It’s made me use up my reserves of optimism and hopefulness. It’s gotten me to that place of not wanting to get out of bed in the mornings. In short, it’s kicking my butt.

This winter has been an intense one, but I think it’s the cumulative effect of twenty Alaskan winters that’s getting to me. Sure it helps that the days are getting longer—we’re gaining nearly six minutes of daylight every day now—but the truth is we still have at least five feet of packed snow in the yard. The temperatures are staying put in the teens and twenties. We still have to get through a lot of slush and muck before we get down to the ground. The part that’s depressing me the most though, the part that’s sucking away the joy of the returning light and making me wonder how much more Alaska is in my future, is that I’m holding out for a summer that Coastal Alaska cannot deliver.

The Rocky Mountain summers set the standard for me at an early age. Those Colorado clear sky days imprinted themselves into my psyche and forevermore my mood will be determined by the ratio of clouds to blue. I’m not proud of this. I’ve tried talking myself into having a more positive attitude. I’ve considered the benefits of living in a land not wanting for water, but it comes down to the things about summer that I miss—the heat of the sun on my skin, wearing short sleeved shirts without having goose bumps, wading into rivers in a pair of shorts and sandals.

I tried to express to a friend the other day how I’m feeling. “Malaise” she said, offering me as close as I’d come to a perfect word to describe my current state of being. I looked it up: Malaise is a highly non-specific symptom and causes can range from the slightest ailment such as an emotion or hunger, to the most serious. Generally speaking, malaise expresses a patient’s feeling that “something is not right”, like a general warning light, but only a medical examination can determine the cause.

I don’t think I need a medical professional to determine the cause of what ails me and I certainly don’t need to pay money for someone to tell me to take Vitamin D, get exercise every day, or find meaningful activities to fill my time. I’ve got those things covered. But still the malaise continues.

Typically when my emotions are out of whack I turn to writing, but even that has been a struggle for the past couple of months. Perhaps my imagination is snow blind. I’m coming up with tremendously boring characters. Their lives are less exciting than my own. I’ve tried to make up for my writing deficits by turning to literature. But lately whenever I sit down to read I fall asleep. The only thing that keeps me going is a chocolate chip reward system that I’ve developed. It’s okay for short stories but it isn’t great for novels.

Right now I’m working my way through the book Fiction Writer’s Workshop by Josip Novakovich. (I’m taking lots of notes so I don’t need chocolate chips for this one.) In one of the sections he discusses word choice. He suggests that we should never settle for a word that is not exactly right. The idea has me turning to my Roget’s Thesaurus of Words and Phrases frequently. I looked up malaise because although it comes close to describing my mental state lately, it’s not quite the perfect word. Malaise led me to Pain. Pain led to mental suffering, displeasure, dissatisfaction, inquietude, and then this phrase: vexation of spirit.

I think that’s it. This winter has my spirit vexed. The core of my being is irritated, annoyed, troubled, tormented, distressed. Our firewood supply is dwindling and we’re supposed to get more snow today. Besides that I’m cold most of the time. Maybe the ever-changing part of me is realigning my internal compass, pointing me back toward the place where I started, to the part of the country where the sun shines most days. Or maybe it’s just the intensity of this winter that has me so disjointed. Either way, I’ll try not to complain too much. I’ll try not to define myself by my current state of mind. Vexation of the spirit runs rampant in Alaska this time of year and I know it will pass. Sometimes though, I just need to vent.

Back in Time

To say that I’m baffled would be an understatement. I’m used to abortion being a hot issue in every presidential campaign—it has been since I’ve been old enough to vote, but this whole discussion about legislating birth control is throwing me off. It’s making my head spin. Really, there are serious contenders in the presidential race that think that birth control is morally reprehensible? How is this not a joke? How is this happening? Or more importantly, where is this coming from?

Earlier this week an Indiana state representative refused to sign a resolution honoring the 100-year anniversary of the Girl Scouts because he says they are a “tactical arm of Planned Parenthood.” Sure, nobody puts too much weight on the opinions of one state representative from Indiana, but his willingness to so blatantly slam the Girl Scouts, an organization known for providing girls with self-esteem building opportunities, indicates a problem. The problem is that many people are still threatened by the idea of smart, independent women who are in control of their own reproductive health and in the GOP’s effort to out-conservative each other, they’ve started saying offensive things—out loud—things that would have been unacceptable in a different climate.

So who are “they” and why are they feeling so threatened? Well, they’re the minority for one thing. Most Americans believe that affordable birth control is just fine. So why is this issue even coming up? Why is President Obama’s plan for across the board access to birth control being made out to be evil? It defies logic. Present day economics dictate that for most families both parents have to work. Would having more children help lessen the financial burden for families? No, it would not. Would keeping women out of the work force help families be less dependent on the government for their basic needs? No, it would not. Without birth control would there be fewer abortions? I don’t think so. Is President Obama going to make everyone use birth control? No, he is not.

Why is birth control even an issue then? All I can come up with is that the GOP presidential candidates are so clueless as to how to tackle the issues our country faces today that they’re focusing instead on an issue that will take the spotlight off of the fact that they have no ingenuity. They don’t know how to address our economic woes or how to begin a discussion on how we’re going to power a country that can’t continue to rely solely on coal and oil for its every need. Instead they’re going back in time. They want to return to 1950, to a time when America seemed on top of its game, women knew their place, most homosexuals were in the closet and there weren’t so many pesky laws in place to keep environmental degradation in check. Those were the good old days—unless of course you were a person of color, a member of the LGBT community or a woman who wanted to limit the size of her own family.

As a woman born in 1968 it’s been relatively easy for me. But some of the things I’ve been hearing lately from the Republicans running for office have served to remind me that my freedoms haven’t been in place for such a long time. My own grandmother was twenty-one years old when women were granted the right to vote. Until 1936 birth control information was considered obscene and was prohibited from being distributed through the mail. The equal pay act was passed only five years before I was born. When I look at the timeline of women’s rights I see that I’ve been lucky. I was able to have a say in the size of my family. I haven’t been paid less than my male co-workers simply because I’m female. I’ve been allowed to vote!

So I guess I take it personally when a group of white, wealthy men start dissing the Girl Scouts or suggesting that women shouldn’t necessarily have access to affordable birth control. I look at the girls from my daughter’s Girl Scout troop and I’m proud of the young women they are becoming. They’ve canoed through the Alaskan wilderness. They’ve volunteered in our community to make it a better place. They’ve been positive role models to younger troops. They’ve learned to be true friends to each other. In a couple years these girls will be launching out of our small town and into the bigger world. They’ll be well prepared. I know they’ll do a good job of reminding the world that smart, independent, empowered women need not be feared, in fact they make the world a better place.

Not as scary as A Thief in the Night

Earlier this week I finished reading Lidia Yuknavitch’s memoir, The Chronology of Water. Normally I don’t feel compelled to own a book—I’m usually content with borrowing a copy from a friend or the library, but this is one I want to buy. As Sugar at The Rumpus would say, Lidia writes with humility and surrender, with resilience and faith, in other words she “writes like a motherfucker.” Lidia’s story is interesting, heartbreaking at times and filled with drama, but it’s her writing that pulls me in—her ability to cut right to the point, her ability to turn the story of a life into a piece of artwork. I want to own her book so I can refer to it when I need some inspiration—which is often.

I was telling my daughter about this book. She’s sixteen and her love of books kicked in later than many of her friends, but to my immense satisfaction she’s now an avid reader. Two summer’s ago she was hooked by The Hunger Games series. Now she’s reading The Virgin Suicides. When I was telling her about The Chronology of Water (don’t worry—I left out the sexy parts) I made a comment that my life has been too boring to ever write a memoir as interesting as Lidia Yuknovich’s. She told me that from what she’s heard of my childhood, I have plenty of material.

It’s true I suppose. My parents divorced when I was very young, which meant that I had to deal with stepparents and the dichotomy of being raised in two separate households. And there’s the whole religion business. My daughter has been to church only a few times in her life but I spent a good portion of my childhood in Sunday school, sitting through sermons and crying at the altar—pleading for forgiveness for the sins I’d committed. (And aren’t all elementary-aged children terrible sinners?) It’s true that living in a non-stop Pentecostal fear-fest certainly makes for some interesting stories.

Most of the hours spent at church—the First Assemblies of God Church on 4^th and Grand Avenue in Grand Junction, Colorado, to be specific—blur together. I couldn’t tell you the specifics of any one sermon. The church itself though, with its long white-tiled hallway, its labyrinth of classrooms, its red carpeted sanctuary and its dimly lit balcony will forever be associated with a whole host of mixed up emotions in my memory.

One of the things I do remember—with horrifying distinction—from the church of my childhood, is a movie that was made in the early 1970s called A Thief in the Night. It was the story of a woman who had been left behind after the rapture. She realized early on that although she was a good person she’d made a terrible mistake by not taking Jesus Christ as her personal savior. Without taking the time to tell you the entire plot line, (I’d need to refresh my own memory,) I can say in all honesty that nothing in my life has scared me as much as that movie. I’m talking nightmare, wet the bed kind of fear. I’m talking crying and screaming upon coming home to an empty house kind of fear. One scene depicted a child being sent away to a guillotine. (Not everyone is as fortunate as I am to have an actual video of the scene that traumatized me for years to come. To understand my terror please see the attached YouTube video.) Other scenes involved torture and executioners.

Ironically, at the time they showed those films during the evening services, I wasn’t allowed to go to movies because they were “against our religion.” Somehow though, the church officials thought it was okay to show A Thief in the Night to children. The graphic, disturbing images were justified because they would hopefully lead to conversions. And let me tell you, the altars were busy on those nights. Jesus became the personal savior of many a kid after those showings. It was a strange combination of Jesus loves you unconditionally and if you do not accept him as your personal savior you will burn in hell.

This is how I was raised. It was the backdrop to all of the other mixed up stuff that was going on with my two-part family and my adolescent body. I guess my daughter is right. I do have a few stories to tell. So does everyone.

As much as I wish I could remember more specific details of my childhood, most of my memories come in the form of emotions. The last time I visited the 4^th and Grand church was for my father’s funeral. My emotions were already out of whack before I walked through the doors, but being back inside that building, seeing so many of my relatives that I hadn’t seen in years, being around the Jesus lingo again, using the same bathroom I used to retreat into as a kid when the pressure of the place became too much—it all reminded me of how I felt throughout the majority of my childhood. Inadequate. Small. Fearful.

So, as usual, (forgive me) all of this comes back to writing. When I applied to the MFA program over a year ago I chose fiction as my genre to study. But I’m questioning that choice lately. When I sit down at my computer it’s the true stories I want to tell—they seem easier to come by because my memory and my experience limit where I can go. But I believe in fiction. I believe that some truths are best expressed when we’re forced to step outside of our own lives. It’s just that when I sit down to write fiction I feel inadequate, small, fearful all over again. It’s not as fear-inducing as A Thief in the Night—nothing is as terrifying as that, but it’s scary just the same. The good news is that if I got over my fear of the rapture I can get over my fear of writing fiction. It takes practice though—a lot of it—and faith in the process. I may not know where I’m going with a story, but worst-case scenario is that I have to scrap an idea or start over. That’s not nearly as bad as thinking you’ll be sent to hell if you screw up.

49 degrees

It’s Thursday morning and I’m moving slowly. If I’m lucky I won’t have to leave the house today. It’s -3 degrees outside and our 1970s-built house is struggling to hold the heat. Yesterday when I got home from work I discovered that I’d shut the woodstove down just a little too tightly and the fire had gone out. The house was cold—a mere 49 degrees—and I had to devote my evening to warming the place up. Today I have the luxury of staying home. I’ll tend to the fire; cook something slow and savory. I’ll have time to work on my story and go for a walk and read.

Funny how staying home feels luxurious these days. When my children were small and I didn’t work away from home I was always looking for reasons to leave the house. I needed to get out. I rarely had time to read or write so I had to go searching for ways to stimulate my brain. I needed to converse with other adults, go to performances and seek out activities that gave us a break from the routine of being home all the time. I had to go away to find the space I needed in my life.

The other night I met with a group of writers at the library to discuss our projects and ambitions for the year. My friend Bill, an elementary school teacher and poet, talked about how last year he had more time for creativity in his life with his middle child on foreign exchange and his older child at college. He described it as having more “bandwidth.” I could relate. I’m starting to feel the effects of more bandwidth in my own life. Less than two weeks ago my son left for college and my sixteen-year-old daughter has taken a huge leap in self-sufficiency now that she has her driver’s license.

It’s a slow, gradual process, this gaining extra bandwidth. It’s an hour of not driving to town and back. It’s a night at home with my husband while Adella is gone on a DDF (drama, debate and forensics) tournament. It’s more frequent evenings with no Netflix or television. It’s a little less cooking, a little less cleaning. It’s a lot less time spent waiting.

The extra bits of time are small, but they’re adding up. There’s a part of me that feels I should be using this extra time to write more prolifically or get to work on our never-ending list of home projects that have been put on hold for the last several years, but so far that’s not what I’m doing. So far with my extra time I’m doing a lot of wandering around, staring out the window, reading, thinking.

I have a suspicion that most people my age, especially parents, have a hard time allowing themselves much unqualified time. I think about my friends around town. Some of them homeschool their own children (which is a full time job with very few breaks and no pay) and yet they still manage to keep their families well fed and their houses in order. One of them directs a nonprofit agency and spends her weekends shuffling her daughter around the state for hockey tournaments. One wrote a book and earned an advanced degree while teaching school. A co-worker of mine volunteers in her children’s classrooms on her days off and then at night, when the rest of her family is in bed she studies for a couple of hours. It’s probably best if I don’t compare myself to these friends of mine who seem to use their time so efficiently. At least not right now.

In a society that measures productivity by the number of dollars earned or tasks completed, I’m falling terribly short. I could be looking for ways to earn more money. I could go back to yoga class or involve myself with one of the many nonprofit organizations that are doing great things for our community. But for now, I just want to stay home. I want the company of my dogs. I want to walk around my property and notice all the things that go unnoticed in a hectic life. I want to take naps and drink tea and sometimes play the same fiddle tune a hundred times until I get a certain part just right.

For now, the little bit of extra time and space in my life feels good—nourishing even, after many intense years of raising children. Of course there are still bills to pay and debt and chores and work, but there is more space around each of those things as my children move on with their own lives. So today my tasks are to play my fiddle, make dinner, keep a hot fire in the woodstove and finish this blog post. Tonight I’ll spend the evening with my daughter before she heads off to Anchorage for another tournament this weekend. I probably won’t set any productivity records or add anything of great value to this world, but for today it’s enough. Sometimes in the middle of winter, in a poorly insulated house, it’s enough just to keep the temperature above 49 degrees.

Montana, music and the New Year

It’s the beginning of a new year—one that will be different for sure in our family. Dillon will be heading up to UAA in a couple of weeks and in the fall Adella will be going to high school in Montana for her junior year. The house will be emptying out a little sooner than I had expected, at least temporarily, and anticipating that change gives me a different perspective on the present. Suddenly spending quality time with my family feels kind of urgent, and yet I’m finding that teenagers don’t necessarily feel the same way. I’m trying to guard against being too sentimental.

It was challenging to stay caught up with my writing in December, so one of my biggest goals for the new year is to start acting like a serious graduate student again. I’m not so far behind that I can’t get caught up, but I have to find the time to write and then use that time wisely. I’m not sorry that I took a break though. I had a great visit with my mom and two older sisters earlier in the month when they came to see Homer’s version of The Nutcracker and the holidays, with everyone at home, have been great.

A little break from writing has been nice, but I’m ready to face the new year now. I find that I’m a bit of a New Year’s geek, always getting introspective and thinking about what I want to change about my life with the change of the calendar. I can’t decide if it’s optimism that makes me this way or if it’s chronic dissatisfaction with the status quo. Either way, I always seem to want to try harder, tweak a few of my habits and generally work on self-improvement.

Last year was great in many regards. I started an MFA program that I’m excited about. I cut my sugar consumption way down. Things are good with my family. But I can see that I unintentionally cut back on a couple of things that bring me a lot of joy.

I went a whole summer without going camping or stepping foot in our skiff—and summers in Alaska are way too short to not get out and enjoy the nature that’s all around. I live in a beautiful place, with a stunning view of the mountains and the bay, but sometimes I need to leave my five acres and get out there. That has to be a priority this year.

The other thing that I didn’t make enough time for in 2011 was music. For the past decade I’ve made playing music a huge part of my life, and it’s one of the things that fills me up. It gives me what I need to go about my less than exciting life of driving around, going to work, doing dishes, cooking dinner. And as much as I love writing, it doesn’t do the same thing for me. Music takes me out of my head. When I get together with friends to play tunes I lighten up. I drink a little. I crack jokes. When I’m alone and I work on learning new tunes it’s a lot like meditation. My mind is clear for a while of all my responsibilities.

I love writing, and it gives me fulfillment in a different way, but it’s heady stuff. When I’m concentrating on writing I tend to take myself a little too seriously. I need to find a better balance.

So my hope for 2012 is to make time for music. With it being an election year, I’m also hoping to spend less time reading the Huffington Post. To me it seems like my time will be better-spent reading poetry, playing music and having fun with my family. Of course I want to stay informed, but I don’t want to get worked up this time around.

I’m also anticipating a trip or two (who knows, maybe more?) to Missoula when Adella is down there. I have nothing but fond memories of my time in Montana when I attended the U of M and although I’ll miss her terribly, I’m happy to have a reason to go back. The mixed feelings I have about her going are eased by knowing I’ll get to visit, and by trusting that she’ll be in good hands while she’s there.

Best Wishes for the New Year to you all, and in keeping with my New Year’s wish for more music, here’s a clip of our afternoon old-time session from yesterday. I’m playing one of the two fiddles. (I’m the one trying to keep up.)

Thoughtful reading

One of the things I love most about the MFA program that I’m in is that it requires of me a tremendous amount of reading. Every month I have to read and write a response to three books. This requirement forces me to focus closely on how a book is written, how its essence impacts its readers and how I might learn to do the same sort of thing in my own writing.

When I applied to UAA’s low-residency MFA program I had to choose between fiction, non-fiction and poetry. I ended up choosing fiction; for me personally it is the most challenging. But I want to study all three. So in order to appease myself I have not excluded poetry or non-fiction from my reading lists.

Right now I’m working on writing a story that is about a place as much as it is about the people in it and I’ve tried to choose books to read that will aid me in this process. This month I was lucky to have stumbled upon a new book written by an Alaskan author who does this so eloquently that I feel I could read it over and over again and each time glean a new angle in my approach to writing about the way a place can influence and shape the people who reside there.

I was initially drawn to the memoir, Faith of Cranes: Finding Hope and Family in Alaska by Hank Lentfer, because of its title. Sandhill cranes return to my neighborhood outside of Homer every summer and I’ve always felt honored to share space with them. Their return every spring is one of the most hopeful things I know of. My own teenaged children, who don’t always seem terribly observant of the natural world, take notice of the cranes and are always thrilled when they first see them flying overhead at the end of every long winter. When the cranes leave each September, almost always on the 16^th day of the month, it’s with mixed emotions; we’re in awe of the magic of migration and already nostalgic for the summer days that went by so quickly.

I was also drawn to the book because of the author’s name. It turns out that the author’s parents live here in Homer and are huge supporters and users of the library where I work. The nosey side of me that is always trying to make connections was eager to read the writing of Jack and Mary Lentfer’s son.

Hank Lentfer’s story is a story of coming of age, a story of finding himself trying to make sense of a world that doesn’t make sense but most importantly it’s a story of love. Hank heartbreakingly loves the place where he lives and the wild places where he hunts deer and picks berries and harvests salmon. His story is of coming to terms with his fear of losing the land where he finds spiritual and physical sustenance. It’s also a story of love for the people who share in his connection to a place and the realization that the loss that ultimately goes hand in hand with love is beautiful and hopeful in its own right.

So many of the books that I read, even some of the great ones, are enjoyable and thought provoking in the moment of the reading. But not all of them stay with me. Faith of Cranes stands out because since I’ve read it I find myself mulling it over, considering the choices I’ve made, thinking about the ways I’d like for my own life to be more thoughtful and more closely tied to nature. And it leaves me asking important questions, a few of which are below:

How different would the world be if all parents, before conception, considered the responsibility, the joy, the loss and the beauty of bringing a child into existence? The chapter in Lentfer’s book entitled, “Letter to an Unborn Child” was striking in its honesty and its raw expression of his fears about becoming a father in a world that is filled with war, environmental degradation and disconnection.
How much living are we, as a culture, missing out on by buying into a consumer-driven mentality? By choosing to slow down and live with less we would be giving ourselves more opportunities to develop friendships, deepen the bonds we share with our families and have more time for self-reliance and art. We know this, and yet it is difficult to extricate our lives from the cycle of filling our days with jobs and tasks we don’t find meaningful. Why is it so hard?
As a person who is concerned about things like climate change, wilderness preservation, clean air, clean water and the protection of habitat how do I not lose hope when the news is overwhelmingly bad on all those fronts? And along those same lines how can creativity, love and hopefulness make a difference?

If you are interested in an intimate portrayal of a life in coastal Alaska, if you love a place on this earth, if you feel a connection to cranes or any other kind of wildlife, if you appreciate a well-crafted story or if you simply would like to escape for a while into a sensual, thoughtful world, I highly recommend Faith of Cranes. And if you end up reading it, I’d love to know the questions it summoned for you. I’d also love to know what books you’ve read recently that have stuck with you, caused you to consider changes you’d maybe like to make in your own life.

The Closeness of the Moon

Yesterday morning, in the early hours, I made myself go out to take a look at the lunar eclipse. I couldn’t see it from any of the windows in my house so I bundled up and stepped outside to my front yard for a good view. The air was still and the stars were made more brilliant by the darkened moon. It was only a few minutes before I wanted to be back under my down comforter, but I’m glad I went through the trouble to go out there. In that moment I felt a hundred different ways, but mostly I was in awe of how it’s possible to feel so close to something so far away. Maybe the moon feels close because there is nothing impeding my view of it, not the curve of the earth or a mountain range. Visually it’s just a straight shot from my front yard, which makes the moon seem closer sometimes than the grocery store in town or my hometown in Colorado where most of my family resides.

Two days ago I drove back home from Anchorage after taking my mom and sisters to the airport. They were here for a week and they got to see Adella perform in the Nutcracker. This was her tenth year dancing in the production. The roads were not in great shape with all of the freezing and thawing that’s been going on, so I took my time. I drove slowly and stopped often. All along the way I listened to The Elegance of the Hedgehog by the French author Muriel Barbery. I was so enthralled with the book that when I got home after the five-hour drive I didn’t want to stop. When I reached the turnoff to my road I opted to keep going for just a while longer. I finally stopped with only a few chapters to go.

Yesterday morning after dropping Adella off at the high school for the Nutcracker and before it was my turn to take a volunteer shift in the greenroom, I parked at the beach and resumed listening to the final chapters of the book. As I watched the sea birds floating on the water I listened to one of the most beautiful and touching pieces of writing I’ve come across in a long time.

So yesterday my day started with a lunar eclipse and it ended with a windstorm. In the middle of it all I helped out with the last Nutcracker performance of the season. But because of the prose I’d listened to earlier in the day I experienced it all differently. While I stitched torn costumes, fluffed tulle and pinned hairpieces into place I was thinking of the closeness of the moon, about the small moments of beauty and friendship in an ordinary life. And today the wind is still raging. If any of the big beetle-killed trees on our property were still standing, this is the kind of storm that could blow them over. If our greenhouse were still intact, this is the kind of storm that would send the fiberglass panels flying across our five acres. And it occurs to me that art has that kind of power. It can rearrange the landscape of our perceptions. It can change an ordinary day into something entirely meaningful. If we let it, it can break down barriers and send the unsecured debris sailing. It can take us to the places we didn’t know we had a right to visit.

A Simple Notion

Back in July I was sitting in a room full of fellow MFA students I’d just barely met when Richard Rodriguez was introduced to us. He walked slowly to the front of the room to deliver his keynote address. His appearance alone commanded my attention. He’s a small man, with dark skin and Native American looking features. He wore a perfectly ironed, white shirt—something already out of the ordinary in Alaska, and black trousers. His brown skin against the white was striking.

Before the residency we were required to read Rodriguez’s book, Brown, and discuss it online. I have to admit, much of his book was lost on me. I had to look up lots of his references in Wikipedia. Sometimes I found his prose hard to follow. Because of my experience with his book I wasn’t sure what to expect from him as a keynote speaker. When he opened his mouth though, and started talking to us, any preconceived notion I’d had about the man was gone. In a matter of minutes I was fighting the tears and by the end of his talk I’d long since given up on trying to hold them back. I was a little embarrassed that I’d lost it that way, in front of these people I’d just met, but when I looked around the room I found I wasn’t alone. Any devices we’d summoned in order to protect our egos before the residency, any doubts about the validity of our decision to pursue writing, any worries about entering into a career path that comes with absolutely no guarantees—they all were gone, at least for a while. Richard Rodriguez had gotten to the heart of why we were all there. He reminded us that “there is only one thing that should interest you as a writer: What it means to be alive.”

Why did that simple notion cause me to have such a strong emotional reaction? Well part of it was in his delivery. He’s an amazing public speaker. But part of it was how he made the average life out to be a thing of beauty. So much writing is filled with ostentatious jargon, or it’s sarcastic or it’s shallow. Richard Rodriguez challenged us as students to write about what is real. It’s harder than you might imagine.

So then, what does it mean to be alive?

Obviously it means different things to different people. All I can speak with authority on though, is what it means for me to be alive. What do I spend my time doing and thinking about? What consumes me? What inspires me? What makes me want to carry on?

There is no doubt that sometimes life is hard. For example, right now we are going on three weeks without running water. The inconvenience of not having water is one thing, but the stress of how we’re going to pay for the repair of our well is something altogether different and more daunting. There’s more. Sometimes in my family there are hurt feelings and disagreements. People don’t always behave the way I think they ought to. The house is never clean enough. Time is constantly scarce. There are always chores that nobody else will do. Recently a close friend was diagnosed with cancer. Sometimes my kids are hurting. Sometimes I’m hurting. And the news, it’s full of terrible, hopeless stories of people going through things a thousand times worse than anything in my life.

Is this what it means to be alive?

The answer is yes, and yet there is always another side. Right now, as Thanksgiving approaches, I’m trying to think about that other side. I’m reminding myself of the unconditional love I get from my friends and family. I’m thinking about my husband’s job and how it allows my son and I to get an affordable education. I’m thinking about my house—it’s modest and it doesn’t insulate very well, but when the woodstove is thumping and it’s cold outside, there’s no place cozier. I’m thinking about the freedom I feel to express myself. I know that some of the things I write are hard for my family to read, but the fact that they love me in spite of our religious and political differences gives me courage. I’m thinking of the view out my window—the very existence of the mountains and glaciers helps put my problems in perspective and the bay reminds me that life is a changing thing. Mostly though, I’m thinking about how lucky I am just to be here at all. I get to watch my children grow. I get to live with the man that I love. I get to laugh at the funny things and cry a cleansing cry now and again. It’s worth a lot just to be able to think and breathe and feel.

Biggest regret

I hate bandwagons. I really do. But sometimes something comes up in the news that I have a hard time shaking off. The Penn State scandal is one of these things. There is no reason for me to repeat how awful it all is. No reason to speculate about what should be done in the football world, of which I care so little about, but there is reason for me to talk about childhood sexual abuse and whistleblowing.

Accusing someone of sexually abusing a minor is a big deal. What are we supposed to do when we suspect—when we have a gut feeling—that someone we care about is being abused?

That was my situation.

I never witnessed any actual abuse, but I began to suspect that something bad was happening. My suspicions were based on the behaviors of the victims, the children, and the fact that the abuser gave me the creeps. I didn’t have any hard evidence to go on, but as I was getting more mature and learning more about the psychological fallout of sexual abuse, things began to add up.

Still, I didn’t say anything.

I was afraid of being wrong. I was afraid of not being believed. Even though the clues were all there, I doubted myself. I even tried to convince myself that I was wrong because to be right about such a thing meant that a family I loved would be torn apart.

Eventually, the truth came out and the abuser was exposed. But his downfall had nothing to do with any courage on my part. The victims, the children he hurt, were the ones who were brave, and they had so much more at stake than me.

Every day I wish I had said something. I wish I had confronted the abuser. I wish I had talked with the children, established myself as a safe person to talk to. Instead I let my fears and my insecurities keep me quiet. I let denial and Christian goodwill cloud my better judgment.

The very ugly truth of the matter is that had I voiced my concerns in some way the abuse might have stopped sooner than it did. I suspected that something was very wrong and yet I was so worried about being wrong or causing a scene, that I said nothing.

Many years have passed since all of this happened and I still ask myself the question every day. “What could I have done?” I never draw a blank. I can always think of something I should have or could have done.

I am ashamed and I am sorry.