I am staring at David Foster Wallace tonight, surrounded by my newly filed writing projects for this semester.
I am staring at him because tomorrow I will be once again teaching his writing in my magazine class, wondering if the students really feel the warmth of his words as they spill across the page. Manic. Frenzied. Beautifully constructed in the way that a mind that can’t stop or can’t compress or can’t simply associate or can’t breathe is constructs beautiful-ness on the page.
I wonder if tomorrow they will understand that writing isn’t something that you do but something that you are. The words are not simply tools to convey some Universal Truth that you have that we are awaiting to hear, for the betterment of all Mankind. Thank goodness you finally arrived to tell us this one thing that we did not know before your accidental cosmic existence occurred because your parents, or the parents of the person sitting next to you, forgot to UnPlan you.
I wonder if tomorrow they will begin their journey into the un-forgiven world of metaphorical discussions, the un-relatedness of ideas that are crashed together and the simply solitude of the trying to both understand the fabrics of the cosmos without forgetting the minutia that makes us human.
I am staring at David Foster Wallace tonight, wondering if my students will find greatness in their words or simply paychecks.
***
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I’m back home in Muncie, sitting at my familiar desk awaiting the start of another week. My mind is elsewhere, though. Enjoying the last few thoughts of the Bay Area before I re-double my efforts here. Before I start on The Plan. Before.
I do love the majestic nature of the Bay Area. For all its negatives, there are simply some amazing parts that are distinctly and humbly positive.
This isn’t a recollection of things, though. Things are replaceable. I don’t miss the bridges or the waters or the sounds. I miss things like my friend’s rabbit, which lives on their deck. In Oakland. (Thor, the mini horse is now at the stable so of course they needed another animal). My little buddy would sit by the window and watch me as I wrote.
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My life changed forever on May 11, 2008.
It wasn’t the first time my life had changed. It certainly wasn’t the last. And while it turned out to be for the better, the immediate change didn’t feel particularly good.
As I used to hear someone say: You think when you quit drinking that you’re life is supposed to get better; my life got worse. Fast.
It doesn’t seem like a very good incentive for change, but when you dig into the idea behind that statement it becomes the most powerful piece of advice I’ve received in my sobriety. Because life isn’t easy. It’s a series of steps, small paces that move us through space-time, methodically and slowly.
The journeys we take, the important ones, require commitment and perseverance. The simple act of quitting something bad, while good in the long run, oftentimes comes with a whole series of immediate consequences that are bad.
It’s good to remind myself of this from time to time.
***
On Monday, weather permitting, I’m going to the Staples (or Office Depot, I can’t rightly remember which one is next to my house). I’ll purchase a wall calendar to hang in my living room (next to one of my desks), a small carrying notebook, and a whiteboard.
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I started writing today’s post, a rather in-depth treatise about my five-year plan. The first explicit plan I’ve had in my life.
When I realized something: I’m not ready to share that will you.
It’s nothing personal, I promise. Although I’ve always found that particular phrase, when applied to a relationship, trite. After all, if it’s not personal then that certainly defines the kind of relationship that you have. And who wants to have a not-personal type relationship?
In this case, though, it really isn’t anything personal. I’m simply not ready to say it aloud yet. I’m not ready to announce it, incomplete and imperfect, for everyone to see. I’m not ready to accept my own fate, to solidify my plans with words on a page.
I’ve already started discussing The Plan with a few friends. I’ve let the words slip out of their Brain Cell, touching the light of the world briefly.
I’m testing it out, like a controlled public relations leak. Let’s float the test balloon and see the reaction.
***
Students oftentimes ask me for advice on writing. Specifically, they ask me how do you make a career out of writing. What, they want to know, did I do.
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Posted 07 February 2010
† Brad §
Life
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I am lucky.
I flew to San Francisco on the first leg of the Year of Friends. There were few expectations. Just some plans. A small notion of what I’d hoped to find. It’s hard to track people down in their lives. People have a habit of getting lost.
Or so I thought.
It’s been my experience that the people I have tried hardest to keep in my life have slipped away. Which I’m coming to realize is because I’ve spent too much time trying to keep the wrong people near.
Meanwhile those who had the most reason to slip away, I’ve found, have just been waiting on me.
It’s an interesting life lesson for a 37-year old.
This weekend, maybe for the first time in my life, I discovered my friends. Just took time to enjoy them, in their environment, doing their lives. I went to them because I wanted to be with them.
It’s hard to explain this difference in my life, but you’ll simply have to trust me when I tell you that the revelation is seismic. (Sometimes quickly, they say, sometimes slowly.)
This weekend, I watched my friend Jessie and our former J-school compadre Sarah assembling the rough-cut trailer for their next project. I don’t want to ruin it, but it’s amazing:
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I don’t want to say my friends are badass, but Jessie and Rob have one of only 1,000 of these cars in service in the world. The Tesla is a new generation of electric car.
Jessie produced the film Who Killed the Electric Car? and the forthcoming sequel (I didn’t know documentaries had sequels), Revenge of the Electric Car. Seriously, though, enough of that. Let’s get to the important part. Me in the Tesla.
Rob, Jessie’s husband, put me in the front seat. I felt weird because the car is worth more than almost everything I own in my life. That said, it was pretty awesome. Not as cool as our trip around the neighborhood (he drove), but a close second.
More pictures forthcoming, of course.
Off-handedly I found out that she got married. She met a guy, had a baby, got married and moved into the hill country of Marin County.
I always expected to hear that particular story. Or a version of that story. At least the end of the story.
That didn’t change the sinking feeling I felt in my heart when I heard it. You can’t prepare yourself for that feeling. Even when you know it’s coming.
Finality is funny that way.
***
We always had a strange relationship, she and I. The timing was always just a little bit off, the circumstances never quite.
Not that we didn’t try. In 1998, we would always find a reason to end up in the same place. Which wasn’t hard because the school was very small. Just a few rooms.
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Posted 05 February 2010
† Brad §
Life
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I’d planned on writing this post on the plane last night, but the best laid plans and all those things.
The travel delays and obstacles, though, brought new opportunities my way. I had the chance to sit next to a young woman from Charlotte on the flight from Memphis to San Francisco. We chatted about our lives, our work, our families. The kinds of small talk strangers sometimes make when they feel safe. Or alone. Or tired.
“You give great story,” the woman said. “Everything sounds so fascinating.”
And both of those statements – if I can say this without sounding more egomaniacal than I normally do – are absolutely true. I’m a pretty good storytelling. And everything does sound fascinating.
But the two are not always related.
***
Thirteen years ago, I visited San Francisco for the first time. Although if I’m being honest, that’s not exactly true. I visited Berkeley.
I’d sent off my graduate school application, written in a flurry of alcohol and drug-induced spasm the day it was due. I was in the throws of what would become a pattern of self-destruction, but at the time it just seemed like a regular week. A regular day. A regular hour.
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Twelve years.
I try not to think of time anymore because it seems to be stretching out further and further, pulling me away from the moments when the important events in my life happened. I can’t escape the reality, though, that it’s been twelve years since I met the women I’m flying to San Francisco to see.
Some of my favorite people: Jessie, Erica and Anne. Three strong-willed women who are more than happy to take up an argument with me and frankly, three women I fear when they gather. Still I’ve grown to love them all. And cherish the small bits of time we get to spend with each other.
It seems both forever ago and just yesterday that we met. I can’t rightly tell you which of these is true. Or if it’s possible for both to be true. Whatever the case, the man who met them isn’t around anymore.
I will happily speak for everyone when I tell you how happy we all are about that (although Rob and Jessie’s wedding was certainly a site to behold. Particularly when Anne and I ended up on the dance floor, much to everyone’s amusement).
***
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I’m late on my post.
Not even a week into the challenge and I’m already late. A few years ago, this would have tied me in knots. I’d have struggled through the evening to write this before the midnight hour.
Not now. I’ve grown comfortable enough with the fluidity of life to understand that sometimes deadlines pass without accomplishment. That doesn’t mean stop moving forward. Just the opposite. It means I continue forward even when the arbitrary spacetime marker has been passed.
I’m okay with my new-found freedom. It’s taken some getting used to, but frankly much of my life has taken getting used to. If I can get used to moving through the world sober, surely I can get used to moving through the spacetime stream with some flexibility.
***
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Posted 03 February 2010
† Brad §
Life
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