I was reading an article about why older people need more friends and suggestions about how to find them (do something different, take up a hobby or join a club) when a woman we met on the beach a couple of times this week and chatted to, rang our garage doorbell and offered her contact information.
Life is wonderful that way sometimes. Full up with wonder.
When I was showing dogs back in the 1970s, we had an unpopular bloodline, an unpopular “type” of Afghan Hound. Our dogs were descended from early imports out of Afghanistan and specifically from a Dutch kennel, van de Orange Menage of Eta Pauptit who was a horsewoman to start with. She cared about soundness. She insisted that her dogs be functional. Their feet and frame, the musculature and minds of dogs from the vdOM kennel were consistently tough. They were smart during a period when Afghans were being bred to be flashy. Sturdy when during a period where breeders were choosing fine bones and narrow heads, what a local breeder bragged was “swan”-like.
Our dogs were strong.
When I was teaching high school English, I kept a Bible and the Qur’an on my shelves. I had the American stories collected by Erdoes and Ortiz. (Most of my books were free to borrow and generally came back, but that book and the side-by-side original Spanish and English translations of Chilean poet Pablo Neruda had to be replaced again and again.) I had many novels, books of poetry, collections of short stories, literary journals, nonfiction, science fiction, fantasy, realism, traditional and modern stories. I urged my students to be respectful of what is called “myth” because that word has become pejorative. Myths are most often the sacred stories of other cultures. Have respect.
My own book is not a myth, not sacred, magical, nonfiction, poetry, or even published. But it is done.
Yes, there will be further drafts, editing, revision, new words, passages cut, rewritten, moved. I may have crossed a line with Nadya’s or Amani’s story. Just for the next hours, let me say it is done. Just for today.
And if you or someone you know might be willing to help me make the story better, please let me know. [See below.]
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I napped, walked, read, cooked, revised older words, wrote new words, traveled, drank coffee, took a ferry twice, queried, submitted, and received good news. We went to the march in Astoria last Sunday. We both support sane “well regulated” gun safety. I set up blog posts to go live in the middle of the night. Life has been trundling along peacefully, but our passports were about to expire in April without our having ever used them, so we decided we had to leave town.
Usually Spring Break is an especially busy time for my students who work in the tourist industry—many of my students do. In fact, local teenagers and immigrants are the only way most of my local restaurants and hotels can stay open.
Though I offer a syllabus with information on where we are headed in class, I never give homework over vacations. Nothing is due the day we get back. They can come to class as unprepared as they like and we will pick up from there.
A friend who is retiring is struggling to figure out what he wants to do with his time. How do I manage? I suppose the best answer is that most often I hardly know the difference between work and non-work. Sometimes I am eager to bake bread and other days it is just something that must happen because the sourdough start on the counter needs to be put to use. Teaching my college class is like that. Most often I am eager to get to class, but some days I have to put in time preparing merely because the task has to be done. The walk on the beach in the rain? Not so different this morning than yesterday when the weather was lovely. Mostly, I do not dread any part of my life.
Most often, I devote Spring Break to working on curriculum and grading papers. I did not do that this year. Instead, I did the bare minimum and my husband and I went away for three nights—the longest we have been gone in 15 years. We stayed in B&Bs in Port Townsend and then took the Black Ball ferry across the Strait of Juan de Fuca from Port Angeles to Victoria in Canada. During this passage north, we talked to a couple visiting Victoria for the first time. We had visited many, many times, but not for thirty years.
Gary and I used to travel to Vancouver Island to stay with friends and show our Afghan Hounds. We attended the first Canadian lure course on Vancouver Island and our Onika was Best of Breed. I was nearly always there around Easter because the the Vic City shows. The old Dutch Bakery sold fancy molded rabbits in three kinds of chocolate. I intended to buy three, one for each grandchild.
I finished reading two books, one already started, but the novel was from a Port Townsend author and I interrupted The Odyssey to read it. I bought a bit of yarn and batik fabric—3 quarter-yard pieces—and three chocolate rabbits-in-roadsters from the Dutch Bakery in Victoria. Gary bought The Nation and 3 pounds of wildflower honey. We did not have access to the internet during the entire trip. We relaxed.
It wasn’t until we were nearly home again that I commented to Gary that I wanted editors and an agent who genuinely loved my work, not just liking it but enthusiastic about it. I found over 200 emails waiting. I responded first to Dinty Moore, editor at Brevity, who had emailed two days before to ask if my essay “Murder of Crows” was still available. Yes! I found a request for the full manuscript of my novel (the second such request). And after I had responded to everyone and written a blog post, Liminal Stories emailed acceptance of my peculiar owl story. I emailed the readers who had helped me with that story to share my good news and to thank them. I returned phone calls from people who had left me messages. I went back to work on the eleventh draft of my novel and worked through three more chapters. I began a work of nonfiction about restoration of a stream and wetland on the Olympic Peninsula, land we passed on our travels. A few days ago, I committed to the Camp NaNoWriMo challenge to complete a project this month. After our walk yesterday, I began work on an SF story, and I will work on it today too. But I always do the National Poetry Month Challenge to write a poem a day. The afternoon was crowded with words.
Saturday, we delivered a chocolate rabbit-in-roadster to each of our grandchildren. I played with each one, and I walked two of them home from their Easter Egg Hunt, loaded with tiny treats. The rabbits were not long for this world.
What I did not do: scored 4 of the essays in APA form that wait on the dining room table; order Malabgrio yarn; complete more squares for the quilt I began, last month now; knit anything beyond a swatch that is unsuccessful; finish painting walls and the rest of the ceiling upstairs violet-gray, or the four matching dining room chairs black or green.
Yesterday I poached sockeye salmon in lemon, garlic, and wine, roasted potatoes, and churned ice cream. I watched some television and recognized that during this vacation I both accomplished and relaxed. I opened the draft of the activity I plan for my writing students today, completed, and printed it off. I went to bed and rose early, heading back to work. Change is good, relaxation is healthy, but so are the ordinary tasks that give meaning to each day.
&PRIDE Press 