Some Coral Imagery for You

Dear Leigh,


It's been a hectic couple of weeks, hence my not checking to see if you'd written back to my last letter til now. My roommate is all married, and I've managed to catch up on all the work I didn't get to do while I was off planning and celebrating.


I also put off replying to your post, because my first reaction was knee-jerk defensiveness, and I've learned that careful thought produces better writing and better decisions, overall.

While staying in this area after I'm out of grad school and building our little piece of country heaven is what J and I have discussed, we've mostly discussed it as what we'll do if I can't find a job I want anywhere else (lately I've been making the assumption that I won't find anything). Your post actually made me bring the subject up with him again, and he said that he imagined us going where I find a good job or, if I don't find a well-paid job that I want, staying in the Southwest Virginia area for a little while so that he can save money for eventual grad school. I'll get a 5-year teaching license, teach somewhere, and when those five years are up...well, maybe the time for J to get his MFA will have already passed, and we'll be living in a new place near his school.

I guess, because I know that it's going to be hell trying to find a job once I've graduated, I wanted to build a dream-future here, too, where the money will likely be. "Plan for all possible contingencies." That doesn't mean that staying is a compromise, for me, because being with J is part of my life plan, too. Having a home with him, wherever it is, is part of my plan. The rest can come when it may--I have no intention of sacrificing anything I want for anything I don't want. I may sacrifice something I want for something else I want--for instance, sacrifice living in this area outside of town (which, I have to tell you, is the most beautiful place I've seen this time of year, and I'm counting every foreign country I've been to) for that dream job in an ugly part of the country, or sacrifice that dream job to live somewhere as beautiful as Meadows of Dan (it sits on the top of a mountain--beautiful hills, covered in fog when the clouds are low). Everything comes at the cost of something else.

My Boston plans were ambitious--excessively so. I haven't got the money. But I still want the adventure. The thing is, I also want this other experience of staying with J.

The way I imagine my life is like that kind of coral that looks like a fan made of veins...do you know the kind I mean? And each vein is a possible path, and each has several paths leading from it, and each path offers the same possibility for fulfilment or whatever. None of them leads backward, really. So, picture J's coral fan intersecting mine, and the intersecting veins not necessarily including Boston, but including dozens of other equally appealing ideas of life that we both have (his fan including some ideas that mine doesn't, and mine including some ideas that his doesn't. It's like a Venn diagram (mixing metaphors; sorry)). I don't see myself following, but rather merging these paths, sometimes taking the detours I want to, sometimes taking the ones he wants to, but always doing what is in the best interest of our security.

I hope that made sense.

Don't worry, I have no intention of following anyone. Walking beside, perhaps, convincing and being convinced to follow routes I/he might not have otherwise taken...but not following.

Though, I admit, I do have the tendency to defer to what others want. J, however, is aware of this, and (almost too often) asks me what I think, what I want, what will make me happy. We'll see how it all turns out...

Love,

Kate

Epiphanies and my dislike of technology in the classroom.

Dear Leigh, 

A little while after I wrote that last post, I reached some of the same conclusions you did.  It dawned on me in poetry class, actually...we were working through some Jorie Graham (amazing poet), and my professor mentioned that the next section of Graham's book of poetry focused on standard events in the life of a woman (or anyone, really).  Suddenly I realized that here was a woman writing about a life not remarkably different from anyone else's and doing it in a way that brought out the emotion and movement of ordinary occurrences.  What she does is beautiful, and, though it mirrors ideas that other poets have had and events that others have experienced, it brings out something that only she can articulate.  If Jorie Graham can write about being her--a woman, a wife, a mother, a daughter--then I can, too.  Those things that inspire me have so often felt unworthy because of how ordinary they are, yet those are the same things that led Graham to write and gain respect in her field.  

So I don't have to find something to be passionate about outside of myself and my relationships, which are what really drive me, to write or paint in a meaningful way.  My work may not be like Jeremiah's--it definitely won't be--but it can be equally good.  I guess that my primary realization was that it isn't that I don't have passion, it's that I don't recognize the passions that I have as passions worthy enough to be pursued within the academic realm or extended into my creative endeavors.   

***break for department meeting***

Since that day in poetry class, I've been noting the images and memories that affect me and have taken up the project of writing about what it's like to move through this world as the person that I am.  The connections that I make between separate and seemingly unrelated moments are, in my opinion, what can separate my writing from the cliche writing about boys and friends and going from adolescence to adulthood (not sure I'm quite finished with that).

As for following J wherever he might go...I'm like you with the captain.  I'd follow my intense writer/procrastinator/banjo-er/guitar-er halfway around the world if that's where he wanted to go next, but I think that part of love--outside of a force that will move you out of your comfort zone--is a compatibility that means that following the one you love wherever they want to go isn't necessarily the antithesis to doing precisely what you want to do for you.  

What I mean is that, though I will go to whatever place J wants to attend grad school, I'm confident that the place he chooses will have opportunities for me, as well, both socially and professionally.  I'm also itching to get out of Blacksburg...I'm excited to go someplace new.  And I'm excited about our plans to eventually come back to good old southwest Virginia and build our own place--on land he will likely inherit--not just because he proposed the idea (I didn't have a clear one in mind) but because it hearkens back to my little-girl dreams of living in the country and producing at least some things for myself.

On a different note, I'm concerned about the direction education is heading. We just had a meeting about ePortfolios, and I find that the faculty are more focused on incorporating technology for technology's sake than they are on incorporating it when it has a clear and useful purpose.  Just because it's new doesn't mean it's progress...so many times the computers only serve to complicate things further and add work for teacher and student alike.  I also disapprove of this "student-centered" learning in which we are encouraged to coddle students with short-attention spans who don't like to read books.  I refuse to bring unnecessary technology into my theoretical classroom just because kids nowadays cannot pay attention or take notes.  Why should we accept the decline of reading and real critical thinking and communications skills?  College is a place to be challenged, not a place for hand-holding. 

In my opinion, anyway.

I'd love your thoughts...hope you're well.

Love,

Kate

An Optimistic Soap Box

Dear Kate,

I read the date of your last letter and was riddled to shame at the length of time I’ve allowed to lapse for my response. However, as I re-read your thoughts, it sparked the same emotion I felt the first time I read your words a month ago. Why it took me so long to respond… I don’t feel right making excuses, because there are none.

The emotions corresponding with your words first dealt with your talk of following J wherever his life may lead. Upon first glance, I fluffed up my feathers of female independence and thought NO!! You should be foraging your own path, and fitting his life to yours. But then I realized my own shoes would follow the capt’s half way around the world and back for two reasons. The first reason is simply because I love him so much, I would never want to be apart from him. His life and mine flow along the same path so effortlessly that I do not feel I am losing any part of my own identity in accompanying him. The second reason is as simple: his life would lead me on the road of adventure I so much adore in this existence. So my thoughts back to your willingness to follow J – I pray that his life will lead you on that adventure, positively influencing your life’s accomplishments. I know you have the commitment with him, I simply pray the second piece won’t lead you into a life of settlement. I do believe you know as well as I that life is truly an adventure worth living.

The second emotion that bubbled from your letter deals with comparison. You are a wonderful person: intelligent, talented, creative. Yet you compare your gifts to those of J. You should be looking to him more for inspiration perhaps than comparison. You are both truly differing people with differing abilities. I fear when we begin to evaluate ourselves against those we admire, we will always fall short. We will never be good enough – You really have your own talents and passions without need for personal judgement based on another's life. I have found that I could many times set my own self up for doubt if I compare myself within YOUR shadow, rather than using it for inspiration. You amaze me, yet I know I have my own abilities outside of your glow. There is no comparison. I fear that when we stumble into a life of “us vs. them,” we set ourselves up for certain failure! We will never be as good as “them” because we are “me’s.” You are the individual with the individual talent – a talent you need to tend to rather than compare. I’ll never be as good a sailor as the capt, but that’s ok, that talent belongs to him. I am simply along for the ride, silently learning as much as possible to become the best I need to be at his sport.

Finally, as to your thesis: Sometimes the topics we choose as “easy” may be those towards which we feel some form of passion. In other words, what you may consider “easy” may not be so for another whose passion falls in another field. For you, your love is in the evolution of the short story. Another may hate the idea of the evolution, and rather focus on the writers choice of pen name. There are so many pieces. Like I mentioned before, both in my previous letter and within this paragraph, passion is that in which we find ease because we love the topic so much. You need to write about what you love: music, thrift-stores, painting, short-stories. Don’t feel your life is so humdrum that you believe it would make for a boring tale. I believe Jane Austen’s tales were not about very interesting lives, yet she wrote them with her own passion – threading that flow of emotion needed to grasp a reader’s adoration. Simply: it is fine to write about those things which are “easy” because they are often the things we care most about, thus weaving the ribbon of interest based upon our own experience and zeal.

Best of luck to your writing, ma cousine.
Paix,
Leigh

Dear Leigh,

I know exactly what you mean.  Though I enjoy many things--a good book, writing an interesting sentence, painting, awful fashion shows on tlc--I tend to lack passion about any of them.  It's become particularly apparent to me in the last few months, when I've found myself faced with the question of what I want to do after graduate school, and when I've found myself questioning why I'm here to begin with.

From the beginning, the professors reference our THESIS, that horrible paper we'll be writing next year, and from the beginning I've been trying to figure out what mine is going to be on.  I like creative writing, and I like reading, so maybe I'll look into the evolution of the short story as an American genre, yet this idea fails to excite me beyond "oh, that'll be relatively easy to write about."  Other people have chosen eras that they love, authors that they love, yet I...I just like to read.  I like a good story.  I like to know about the people who wrote the story, and I like to know how that comes through in their work.  Yet, still, none of it excites me beyond "oh, that book sounds interesting; I think I'll read it if I can find the time."

Then I watch and listen to J, who agonizes over his stories, who turns out wonderful and original prose, who can argue passionately about a number of things, and I feel as though I'm failing in some way.  As a human, am I not supposed to have a calling?  

I haven't touched my most recent painting in a month, I can't seem to come up with a good story let alone finish one, and a thesis just sounds like a chore to me.  Afterward...honestly, I'll take a job wherever J plans to finish grad school, as long as it pays okay and seems somewhat interesting.  I'll have weekends to clean and do my little hobbies like sewing and painting and thrift-store shopping...

It seems like I'll live a life where my passion won't be translated to paper.  I'd love to be a writer, but my life up until this point has been entirely too average, and I don't care to write about it.  I wish I could make it relevant to others, and I wish I could think of an era of English literature that inspires me, but the truth is I just want to be able to enjoy my family and small occupations comfortably, and that's not really novel-worthy...

So I don't really have an answer to it all.  I feel similarly to you, and most of the time I'm pretty much okay with that.  Every now and then, though, I wish I had an intense interest in medieval linguistics or...Rudyard Kipling...or...writing the next great american novel.  I just don't have that thread, as you say, to weave through my writing that makes it exciting and relevant enough to be said to have passion except on the most superficial level.

My cat just began to snore.  I think it's time to go to bed.

Love,

Kate

Prioritizing Passion

Dear Kate,

I love the memory given by your mother in her letter. Here was her daughter, wanting a walk, but content to fend herself. Consequently, mom reevaluates the importance of her choice in this situation, and decides instead to spend good quality time with her daughter. So often in our society we miss this quality time…Look at your closest relationships now. You, like me, are content in solitude, but appreciate good quality time spent with those dearest to our hearts (though the actual number within that intimate circle only requires the use of one hand to count).

Just now I sit writing you, alone in my home, content with the music in the background and the snoring of the herd. I had spent some needed time reading a great book, a gift from the capt. costing him only a quarter. Soon I will be leaving for a drive over to my brothers, and though capt has had a long rough day, he has chosen to ride with me the hour’s distance to Destin. I have to go regardless and would have gone alone, but he who had the choice decided going along for the ride mattered. And I love him a little more for that decision. Now this obligatory ride will become one of good quality time spent with a wonderful companion…a nice break from the monotony of obligations.

Alluding to your letter though, these sacrificial decisions must be balanced on either side of any relationship for bonds to hold. It sounds like your friend in Atlanta demands all from you with little to return. I do not wish to make assumptions, but I do often find myself constantly in the shoes which cause me to bend backwards to others. And slowly it results in great weariness. I find I often have to take a step back and let the plate fall. If it doesn’t break, I’ll eventually return it to its place. (Luckily the doc’s plate shattered, and I am a happier person for it!) So I pray for the sake of your relationship with Atlanta – I pray she assists in keeping the plate of your friendship spinning, so you alone are not drawn to weariness, risking the break of a special relationship.

Now to shift topics –

I finished a book New Songs in an Old Café by Robert James Waller. It is a collection of essays written mostly for the Des Moines Register. I bring this up because I felt his essays were filled with such passion! This passion emitting from his pages led me into deeper thoughts. One essay, which actually is a commencement speech, deals with the topic of Romance. And I get it. I felt it did a fairly good job describing my lifestyle: open to the joys of life, in whatever form they may mold – music, nature, solitude, poetry. Like I said – I get it. When not bogged down by family strains, I embrace those joys of life: the dawn of a new day, the colors of a sunset, the uncertain adventures taken in life, the tune of a strummed or hammered dulcimer, the acceptance of dogs unconditional love. It is all beautiful.

But I do tend to lack passion. This passion is not directly spoken to by Waller, but you can feel it in his works. I discussed this with a friend over lunch, and friends idea was practice…the more you write, the more passion becomes apparent. I agree with this, but I just feel there is something more. I once learned at a soccer camp that practice made permanent. If I continue to write with lifeless allure, then my future writings will continue to embrace nothing. I think, obviously, we need to write about topics of which we devote a great deal of care, and to immerse yourself into that about which you do care. Learn it, live it, feel it, understand it. This way you can accurately defend your position with not just scholarly knowledge, but experience. This passion draws you towards certain books, events, adventures, lectures. And when you write about said experiences, your words flow from your mind faster than your fingers can write. There is such energy emitting from your pencil, others feel rather than read your writings. Back to the Waller example, his essays may not have dealt directly with things which interest me, but I felt emotion boil up inside as I experienced his words.

So, my question…where is my passion? (rhetorically speaking) Where are the emotional ribbons I need to weave through my words? What do I care so much about that I am leaving feelings rather than ink? I like many things, sure: natural freedom, local produce, French lifestyles, panting dogs, irresistible food, sensational grace. Yet I feel I lack that extra oomph to passion. I’m not upset over this, just in awe. I pray perhaps this realization will spark a desire to deepen my knowledge in said areas, so I too can write with the emotional conviction seen in so many writers (Kingsolver, Lamott, Bryson, Quinn).

Paix, ma cousine,

Leigh