full fathom five

A timely reminder from heroes

    I've been away book-touring, so I haven't posted here for a long time.  I'll be leaving again tomorrow as well, but it's been wonderful to be home this week of the election, and to reconnect with my ESL students.  They are mostly Chinese, with one Thai woman and a Columbian for an interesting variety of perspective.

   The Chinese students work about sixty hours a week among local Chinese restaurants, so they're always tired, always dragging a bit to class, yawning, and resigned to nothing more than their present routine throughout their lives.  They're working for their children,  and have no expectations for themselves.

    But yesterday, the morning after the election, the students walked quickly into class, their heads up, making eye-contact.  It made me smile, and I asked M., one of the three with citizenship so that he could vote, if he was happy.  "Yes," he said.  "Yesterday I make my dream come true."  

    Another, L., had stayed up late to see Obama's acceptance speech.  Despite the fact that she'd had only a few hours' sleep and was facing into another 12-hour work day, she looked fresher, more alert than I'd ever seen her.  She said her son, in his last year at N.Y.U. and eyeing a particularly tough job-market, had called in tears after the speech.  "Now we have hope," she said.  

    I know that M. and L. were thinking of their children when they said these things, but I find great comfort in Obama's shining the light for a few moments of these last few days on people like my students themselves.  He eulogized his grandmother, who died election eve, as an unsung hero.  

    As someone new to the definition of hero, having had to research and write my way to an understanding of my father's sacrifice in WWII in my late-fifties, I finally can appreciate people who uncomplainingly sacrifice sleep, comfort, status, dignity, vacations, health, any hope of retirement, and even their lives - for future generations.  In Dreams of My Father, Obama's grandmother has to forfeit her dreams for retirement after her husband's sales career stalls, and re-enter the work-force in middle-age, slowly working her way up at a local bank.  Obama makes her sacrifice come alive in showing her pretzling herself every morning into a suit and heels, coming home at night with aching feet to cook dinner.  

    Before I got home from my recent book-trip, I was bemoaning the fact that the economic debacle will make it impossible for my husband to retire next year as we'd planned.  It only took a day back with my students to realize how lucky I am that we can think of retirement at all, any time.    

                    

Balancing Act

Everyone I know is trying to economize, and the hard thing is to compromise, just slow down our consuming rather than bring it to a grinding halt, thereby contributing to the freezing up of business.  Slowing things down means going a longer time between haircuts, dental cleanings, and oil-changes; and substituting high-priced goods like organic coffee-beans, arugula, and fresh salmon for cheaper ground coffee in a can, Boston lettuce, and chicken.  It's hard, even so, to avoid hurting small local businesses in these attempts. 

    But it's the only way I can think of to get some sense of control in the chaos of this past week.  This and trying to focus on the riches we still have: freedom to think and speak our minds, domestic peace under the rule of law, peak foliage season here in the Northeast, our health, and good friends.   

The Debates

Today on NPR, commentator Daniel Schorr called the Vice Presidential debate a draw because neither candidate fulfilled negative expectations. Palin didn't look naive and Biden wasn't too wordy.  I earnestly hope this is true, because it looked to me that Palin won, based on my assumption that the portion of the viewing audience who decides things based on appearance far outnumbers those who have to step back, read, research, and reflect before they can decide. 

Palin shows an impressive grasp of how to sell herself to this first kind of voter.  She smiles often, talks readily and forcefully, and is almost always positive.  This latter technique means that she almost never addresses problems, or if she does, she quickly summarizes them with a catchy phrase like "bridge to nowhere," and moves on to the sunny future McCain will give us.  And so, while Biden answered the moderator's questions by identifying the problem so that we could follow the reasoning of his proposed solutions, Palin skirted the questions, going straight to bright futures.  For instance, when asked how they would fix the economic crisis or end the Iraq War, Biden outlined policies of the Bush administration that got us into both messes to underscore how his solutions represent change.  Palin then responded to Biden by saying something like "There you go again, looking backward.  McCain is forward-looking, pointing the way to a better future." 

And Biden replied to this with "The past is prologue,"  - and I wanted to turn off the TV.  The number of viewers who don't understand what he means by that, or won't bother to figure it out, and who would rather hear palliatives like "a better future," far outnumber the viewers who want to hear problems clearly addressed. 

I'm not saying this out of elitism or because I live in the liberal northeast or because I'm cynical or prone to seeing the glass half-empty.  I'm saying this because of the last election, when Bush - who talks platitudes rather than problems - beat Kerry.

Another way Palin resembles Bush is that neither of them correct themselves when they mispeak.  They just blunder on - with confidence.  This is brilliant on Palin's part, because when she said things like "The toxic mess of mainstreet has spread to Wall Street," or misnamed the general in Iraq who replaced General Petraeus, she didn't blink.  She went right on talking forcefully and with a smile.  My ESL students, who aren't even fluent in English, noticed at least one of these times, and ventured that maybe Palin isn't smart enough to realize that she's made a mistake.  I told them I don't think so, and I differ here from many of my friends, too, who say that neither Palin or Bush are very bright.  I'm afraid this is wishful thinking.  They are smart, to my mind, in knowing that they project strength, reliability, and know-how if they talk past their mistakes rather than saying "oops, I mean the toxic mess of Wall Street."  It takes a lot of practice to perfect this sprightly flow of words, to rid oneself of any show of hesitation, even of any ums and ahs. 

I think both these people are superb politicians.  They have a sophisticated grasp of what pleases the majority, and that plus their ability to deliver it should never be underestimated.          

Three Elephants in the Livingroom

I find three things missing in all the talk about the financial bail-out.  Although there is endless acknowledgement that we, the taxpayers, will be responsible for having to bail Wall Street out of a mess that they clearly made, there has not been one apology to us.  Not in Bush's speech last night, nor in Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's, Fed chairman Ben Bernanke's, nor from any of the failing Wall Street firms', Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae's, CEO's.  And none of the pundits even mentions this lack.  Am I the only one who "hears" this gap as a silence that deafens?  Am I the only one who thinks it's the epitome of boorishness and incivility to blame, blame, blame, yet never offer a whisper of apology to us, the people who will have to clean up the mess?

    And in these words "have to," above.  Isn't that the way it is?  And yet suddenly we're hearing all kinds of talk as if it's up to us.  Talk like: The American people should get some quid pro quo for their money.  They should demand more oversight of financial markets, an investigation of who got us into this mess, and no more golden parachutes for executives of failing firms.  So it seems there's another glaring omission, another elephant in the livingroom: that we have no choice.  We will be taxed to clean up the mess, just like we were in the late '80's with the savings and loan debacle.  And yet we're being advised on what we should demand of lawmakers.  Hmmmm.

    And another omission in all the talk of the financial meltdown is The Iraq War.  Doesn't the fact that the U.S. treasury, after nationalizing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and rescuing AIG, must now turn to the taxpayers to bail out the rest of Wall Street, have something to do with the billions of dollars that have been streaming out of this country since we invaded Iraq?  Doesn't it stand to reason that we would have had some kind of a cushion against this bail-out if not for the war? 

    If I'm wrong, I'd love to know.  Just let's talk about this possibility, get it out in the open. 

    And, as usual, it's not enough to rant and rave here on a blog.  I've now got to write to my congresspeople, which is what I recommend to any of you who feel these and undoubtedly more glaring gaps in recent public discourse.    

The Loss of a Great Voice

I'm very surprised at the fact that since the death of David Foster Wallace, author of the postmodern novel Infinite Jest and numerous unforgettable essays, I've felt the loss of his voice, his sardonic-yet-compassionate take on the world, every day.  Since September 13th, when I first heard the news on National Public Radio while we were off sailing, I've braced myself against a new silence, the weakening of a shared sense of absurdity - surely D. F. W. knows how ridiculous this is, my addiction to Roger Federer's footwork - when I smack up against a new subculture.  So he was with me, albeit unconsciously, when I insisted to my husband that we interrupt our cruise to veer off to Rockland Harbor so I could spend two nights in a loud, mildewed-smelling basement poolroom of a waterfront sports-bar to watch key matches of the U.S. Open tennis tournament.

    Only Wallace's passing has alerted me to the fact that I internalized something of his world-view, how it feels to stand on the threshhold of a new subculture, with its contradictions and absurdities winking at you, but also feeling a new sense of one's own frailties.  And now with this new sense of missing him, I want to recommend three of his essays that lodged him so unobtrusively but firmly in my mind. Two are in his 1998 book: A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again.  The title essay is about a Carribean cruise on a Club-Med-like commercial cruise-ship that - like almost all his writing, surprised Wallace in what this subculture of excess showed him about himself.  He wrote the piece for Harper's Magazine, I think, and he boarded the vessel with the assumptions of his audience: that the experience would be cheesy, gluttonous, and absurd, which he showcased by men in lurid leisure suits and women in lamay evening gowns oohing and aahing over the butter sculpture centerpiece that towers over the dining-room.  After cataloguing such scenes in a colloquial voice that sounds like your funniest friend, he shows himself in his cabin getting ready for the last night's banquet, gaping at the tuxedo t-shirt he brought in place of the required black-tie, having second thoughts about his sardonic choice.  He says that if you think it's easy being the only one who breaks a rule - no matter how silly - in a self-contained world that you can't get out of, think again.  And as he chastises himself for being literally paralyzed, confined to his room by this sudden need to fit in, he underscores the fact that life is continually surprising, continually challenging to our idea of self.

    The other two essays are about the tennis players Michael Joyce and Roger Federer.  The first one is in the book of essays above, about the subculture of the sattelite tennis tour, the minor-league of professional tennis.  The second appeared in the New York Times a year or so ago.  Google "Roger Federer as Religious Experience."  It's about the preternatural grace of Federer, and the experience of seeing him live as opposed to TV.  In both these essays, Wallace deconstructs physical movement and the geometry of the court to make us newly appreciate what these athletes do while at the same time retaining the mysteries of the game.  Such as the way Federer seems to float a foot above the court.  The fact that he never gets injured, while most other players have to wear ankle, knee, or thigh supports, attests to what otherwise would seem just a fantasy or trick of the eye. 

    These pieces, and I'm sure all the rest of Wallace's work (I haven't read much more than this because I find the trademark footnotes of his fiction interruptive), show us a voice that is very funny in a sardonic and ironic way, and yet is never mean or mocking.  We are so lucky that he's left this rare balance, a feat akin to Federer's footwork, behind.                 

book-promoting

Book-promoting is the hardest thing about writing today, besides the shrinking audience of readers that we've all heard about.   Promoting a book is hard because it's the exact opposite from writing in many ways.  Writing is individual, so the writer can fully control the process, but book-promoting involves at least two people: writer and librarian, events coordinator, or bookstore manager.  And because these people are doing the writer a favor in giving her a venue and free publicity to try to sell her book to an audience, the writer is no longer in control of these transactions.  The events coordinator is. 

    And whereas writing is all about pleasing oneself, promoting one's book is completely about pleasing other people.  The first is all inner-directed; the second, outer-directed. 

   Writing has an inherent momentum and continuity; book-promotion is a stop-and-start hodgepodge of interruptions and dead-ends.  Events coordinators don't call back, so you have to start over with a new venue.  A few of these starts and stops, and you wonder what you've done with your day, whereas the writer has created meaning with the hours she's put in. 

    And finally, one never knows whether her promotional efforts have been rewarded.  When you get an invitation to give a book-talk, you rarely know why they called you.  It could have been because of the letter you wrote them three months ago, or it could have been from word of mouth, or the lucky sighting of a review or posting of a book-talk notice that you haven't even seen yet.  So very often, you don't have a sense that you're making any progress. 

    Therefore, the tipping-point I've recently experienced after a solid year of promoting my book (starting long before it was published), is not necessarily of my own making.  But I'm welcoming it with relief and gratitude nonetheless.  It's the point where I no longer have to reach out to events coordinators and publicity people; thankfully, they've started to call me.  So I can take a welcome rest from the chasing or "following through" mode.  In fact, I'm through making cold-calls to potential book-talk venues; I'm going to move on to new writing this Fall, and only promote my book selectively, in response to people who have called me.

   Because it's the opposite of writing and thus feels unnatural, the promotion I can trace back to my own efforts is something I'm inordinately proud of.  It's the hardest, most frustrating work I've ever done, so small victories really stand out. 

    But after the talk is finally scheduled, comes the enjoyable part of promotion, and most other writers I've talked with agree.  We love to talk about our book, love to connect with readers.  So book-talks are wonderful once I've gotten all the scheduling done, helped publicize the event, ordered and packed up books to take to it, and set up and tested the audio-visual equipment before the talk.  This last is always a nerve-wracking process, involving a precise sequence of steps which, if I get them wrong, I've got to call my husband to talk me through by phone as audience files in and takes their seats.  It's always just down to the wire when I start talking.  One time, the electricity failed completely, and I had to go to hand-outs, which I'd made up for just such a possibility. 

    Fiction-writers have an easier time, because fiction is better-suited to reading aloud than non-fiction.  Non-fiction writers are advised by book-marketers to talk about their books, while fiction-writers can simply read from their books and take questions at the end.  No need for slides, as in my case. 

    Because the last thing I want to do in this summer of book-promotion is relive its many frustrations by writing about them, I haven't blogged much.  When I'm not promoting, I'm in the garden digging my worries into the soil, or walking out the kinks in my back from hunching over the e-mail all day.  So it's been a long time between posts this summer. 

    I'm hoping things will change come Fall, with the advent of new writing and no longer chasing promotional venues.  My husband and I are taking a sail down-east to Penobscot Bay in a few days (from Sept. 3-14), and I trust the late summer winds to blow all the promotional obsession out of my mind, and I'll come back empty and ready for new work.  I hope the same new Fall spirit for all of you. 

             

Volunteers

First, before I go into volunteers, those wonderful surprises blown from errant seeds into carefully-planned beds, bringing blips of startling color to monochrome swaths, here is the plan: the top half of the daylily bed lining the driveway is orange and yellow Frans Hals, named for the cheerful dutch painter; and the bottom half is yellow hyperion-like Dover.  A simple balance of spectacular color that grows denser, more intense, each July.   

And then, as you scroll down the picture below, you'll see the errant bit of purple loose-strife, then the nodding black-eyed susan, and then the crowning glory: two "Raspberry-parfait" (a daylily expert tells me) lilies at the bottom.  Don't know where they came from, but what a delight!  I used to pull volunteers out to maintain the integrity of my beds, but now I feel the opposite: they're the glory of the garden.  Why?  Maybe I'd just rather not work as hard, just take more weeding time to stare and marvel.  Feels better. 

Garden Spring 08

It's a spectacular season for blooms this year because of all the snow we had this winter, plus a rainy spring.  Our Miss Kim lilac, filling the whole house with fragrance, now reaches the eaves of our roof, and is covered with flowers. 

One thing that's good about the foliage garden fronting the lilac, is that the different hues of green make the lilac's blooms stand out.   

Below, Lupine rising on the hillside off our sunroom has just reached the tipping point of enough healthy plants to now spread itself.  So now I won't have to dig weeds out of the hard clay to make places for it to reseed itself, like I did last year.  Whew!  (That's a relief, because last year's marathon digging gave me a rotator-cuff injury to my right shoulder which took months of physical therapy to heal.  Lupine, despite the fact that it's a weed here in Maine, is hard to get started.) 

And below is our Aunt Dee wisteria in bloom, with many more flowers than it had last year.  Each oblong cluster of blossoms is an inch or two longer than last year's, and the smell is musky and addictive.  It's not a floral scent, but one like new-mown hay, making you stop in your tracks and think, "God, it's good to be alive!" 

   

That's all for now...

Reviews

I have just added a page with links to reviews and interviews of Full Fathom Five the book.  It also appears on the right hand sidebar.

Post-Memorial Day Reflections

I had two Memorial Day services to attend this year, and in whizzing up the Maine Turnpike from the first one in New Hampshire to the second one - the first such service our little rural town has put on - I got a speeding ticket.  It's a whopping big fine (over $200), which I'm going to contest based on my perfect driving record and years of community service.  Well, at least I can try.

But after the New Hampshire service, I found myself reluctant to pull myself away from the typical reunion-like reminiscence that always takes place when adult children of lost submariners get together around our explicit commonality.  It's rare when complete strangers talk so intimately from the get-go, and we tend to overlook the fact that we've never met before, and the talk explodes with revelations. There's no chit-chat.  Talk's stripped down to urgent stories that we've got to get out before we run off to other services or family events.   

And so A., a lady whose dad went down on the WWII submarine Albacore, told me about the smell of stewed tomatoes, while her partner peeled off from us in search of normal conversation.  A. fit what I've come to recognize as the paradigm of adults who lost their dads early in life: they don't start researching their dads till some event cracks them open in middle-age.  A's event was the sound of an old-time kid's bicycle bell, which - when she looked into it, she found was the signal of the WWII telegram delivery man when he brought wives the terrible news that their husbands' boats were overdue and presumed lost. 

When A. heard the bicycle bell that put her on the trail of her father, she was 47.  Some kids were going by on the sidewalk outside her house, the bell sounded, and the portals of memory opened up like a powerful sixty-year-old wind blowing through her head. A bedroom in her grandparents' house; her mother crying; sitting on a yellow and white quilt on the bed; the smell of stewed tomatoes.

A. called up her mother and said that she had some questions about her childhood, but wanted her mother to first just listen to her version so that she - A. - could know if she was remembering right. After listening, her mother confirmed the memory: it was the day the telegram had come, when A. was just five.  Like many wives with small children, A.'s mother and A. were living with A.'s grandparents while A.'s father was at sea.  The grandparents had been canning tomatoes in the kitchen when A. and her mom heard the telegraph man's delivery bell from their upstairs bedroom. 

Another urgent outpouring was from L., who told us how she was only just now realizing the traits she had inherited from her dad, who went down on the submarine Thresher.  She mentioned all the volunteer work she does, and we agreed that many of us carry (suffer, in my case; I hate committee-work) that strong sense of civic duty that our fathers had to have to serve in submarines.  She also talked about how calm she is in a crisis, and we reflected on how this trait had to have come from her father; prospective submariners were screened for their ability to suppress the natural reaction of fight or flight in emergencies, and keep quiet as well as calm.  I had a sudden flashback to thirty-some years ago when I'd been stacking firewood in our driveway, and the woodpile collapsed on my hand, crushing a finger.  A praeternatural calm came over me as I quietly told our six year-old daughter to run inside and call Dad to come home right away from work.  She'd seen the blood and knew it was an emergency, but was able to dial the correct number right away and calmly ask for her father.  We got to the hospital and had the hand numbed and stitched up without incident, and I'd always thought - till this Memorial Day - that it was for our daughter's sake that I had stifled all my natural crisis-responses.  I'd thought it was something that all mothers with young kids have.  I'm lucky enough not to have had more occasions to test this belief in the years since.

I have another WWII orphan friend who figured out late in life that the recurrent nightmare she's had ever since she was a child likely stemmed from that fateful day when her mother received the "overdue, presumed lost" telegram.  I've written about it here before so I'll just summarize:  D. would wake up in a sweat after dreaming of being suffocated, with a woman's scream in the background.  She took a roadtrip in her late fifties with her aged mother to all the significant places her mom had been with her dad.  The trip revived her mother's fifty year-old memories, and she told D. that on the terrible day, D.'s paternal grandmother answered the door, read the telegram and started screaming.  D.'s mother, upstairs, grabbed baby D. out of her crib and ran downstairs.  When she saw D.'s grandmother with the telegram, she knew.  D.'s grandmother stopped screaming enough to help the telegram man, still in the door, to pry D.'s mother's fingers from the baby, who was turning blue as her mother, in a daze of grief, desperately clutched her against her chest.

This is what Memorial Day, blessedly, has turned into since I woke up in middle-age and went on the trail of my father.