speak softly….

Last fall, I had the honor of being asked to speak at a meeting of the South Carolina Perinatal Association.  I gave a talk entitled “Through a Mother’s Eyes:  The NICU Experience,” addressing how issues surrounding NICU culture can affect communication, privacy, and bonding.  The audience was a wonderful mix of perinatal professionals, including physicians, researchers, nurses, social workers and developmental specialists.  I’m sure I gained as much if not more from hearing the others speak as they may have learned from my simple words.

From that talk, I was then invited to participate in a national conference that will be taking place this week in Florida.  The annual Gravens Conference on the High Risk Infant brings together neonatal care providers from all across the country; the goal of the conference is to share “evidence‐based knowledge in neurodevelopmental science, developmental care, healthcare design, and family support …. in an endeavor to nurture the developmental needs of babies and the emotional and informational needs of their parents.”

I’m honored to be part of this group, and am so looking forward to the opportunity to discuss strategies for mitigating stress on NICU families (and infants) and to help find even better ways to support those who are undergoing the NICU experience.  How profound it is to know that from Evan and Ellie’s very premature birth and short lives, there is still more to share, and more to learn.

In February of 2009, a treasure of a novel crossed my desk–The School For Essential Ingredients–one I read, reviewed and passed along.  Enter the internet and a subsequent lovely contact from the author herself, Erica Bauermeister, who also happens to be mutual friends with some other dear folks from Literary Mama.  This spring, Erica wrote to tell me about her new book, Joy For Beginners, which appeared this June.

Like School, Joy offers up shifting and multiple points of view, reminding me of what I love about multiple points of view done well:  not only do the storylines resonate off one another, bringing different themes into relief, but we also appreciate how the interconnectedness of storylines in turn reminds us of the ways in which all our lives are connected.

The premise of the book involves a pact six women make to one another to each take on a bold and liberating life adventure.  In the process of these adventures, these women in turn discover something truly essential about their strengths — and weaknesses.  My favorite characters here go far into their vulnerabilities and longings, come up against their deepest grief, and yet when they emerge from the challenges they’ve posed themselves, the reader finds herself taking heart and strength from those same direct encounters, those same experienced vulnerabilities.  This is a book that truly sneaks up on a reader with its simplicity and grace; by the end I felt both exposed and yet also deeply restored.

I’d love to share a copy of Joy with one of my readers.  Leave a comment about a life-changing challenge you’ve put to yourself, and I’ll send a copy of the book to one lucky winner picked at random.

Thank goodness, as I need at least a week to collect myself, answer emails, update the blog, you name it.  As a result, the following is quite a hodgepodge, taken from my never-ending list of “to-do’s” and “to-done’s” (and the occasional “to-didn’t”–if I owe you an email, forgive me).

First, in response to my post about reading in January, I received a note from a contributor to Elevate Difference, who herself wrote a review of Michelle Latiolais’ Widow.  Head over to the site to read Kari O’Driscoll’s wonderful review of the book, in which she writes that Widow contains “poignant stories of humanity, love, and life experience that ring true and leave the reader with a deeper understanding of love and loss.”

As for reading in February, March and April, I slowed down quite a bit.  However, a few books stand out from those months, including Joan Wickersham’s Suicide Index, with its unconventional form and arresting plot; Lynne Cox’s Grayson, a parable-within-a-story-within-a-parable that makes you look for the extraordinary in the ordinary; and Kim Dana Kupperman’s I Just Lately Started Buying Wings.  Kuperman won the Bakeless Prize in 2010 for these brilliant essays.  Of particular interest to me was the piece entitled, “Relief” about her mother’s suicide, brother’s death from AIDS and disposal of both their ashes.  Last but not least was Lee Gutkind’s warm, funny and original memoir, Truckin’ With Sam, a book about a father-son road trip full of insight, argument, music and, in the end, understanding and love.

I recently had the pleasure of meeting Gutkind, otherwise known as the Godfather of Creative Nonfiction, at the University of Central Florida Book Festival.  I was invited to the festival by Cecilia Rodriguez Milanes, author of the wonderful collection Marielitos, Baleseros and Other Exiles, to sit on a panel entitled, “Parental Bonds thru Trouble and Tragedy.”  The panel included myself and Lee and also Les Standiford, who has written many books, including a powerful one about the Adam Walsh murder case, Bringing Adam Home.  The panel was moderated by another writer new to me, Lisa Roney, who has written a book that’s at the top of my list right now, Sweet Invisible Body:  Reflections on a Life with Diabetes.  At these events, on panels like this one, I continue to be humbled and amazed:  at the great writing out in the world, the hard-working writers who make that great writing, and that I am part of that world, in some small way.  You can read more about the book festival on Cecilia’s blog.

Tonight I will find out if I have to spend the last day of this too-short week in a jury room.  If there is any kind of justice, and if she is blind, the answer will be “no.”

My new favorite breakfast:  brown and wild rice with a dash of sriracha, served up thanks to the rice cooker.  So easy, so delicious.

A few months ago, I was trying to remember the title of a book I’d read while researching my memoir.  I asked at the library circulation desk if they could look up a record of the books I’d checked out recently, only to learn that as soon as a book is returned to their system, it disappears from the patron’s record.  This is certainly nice if you have a history of reading The Anarchist Cookbook, or the Communist Manifesto, and don’t want to encourage a visit from the local FBI if there’s been a rash of mysterious, politically-motivated vandalisms in your neighborhood.  However, if you’re simply a person who reads too much and has no memory, the fact that the library isn’t helping out by keeping A List of Books You’ve Read, well then, when it comes time to find that book on death and dying that has an incongruous subtitle involving a mythical sea creature, you’re kind of lost.  “But I can remember the cover, just not the author or the publisher or the title.”  Precisely.

I decided to start January with the intention of keeping a list of all the books I’ve read, so as to avoid these amnesiac pitfalls in the future.  I’m not one to count fingernail parings or bowel movements the way some infamous diarists might be wont, but it has been interesting to watch the record accumulate, to see what I started and didn’t finish, what I liked and didn’t, what took me to new places and what hidden gems I finally picked up and read to completion.  There’s always a list of “books to be read” in my mind, on my nightstand, in my library queue, and, well, all over the house.  But the list of Books Read is pithy and interesting.  So, in the spirit of Nick Hornby’s The Polysyllabic Spree (and with apologies in advance to the authors) I give you Books Read In January:

Sam Lipsyte – The Ask – if you are a fan of self-hating narrators, this one’s for you.  A friend of mine who lives in NYC loved this book, which makes me wonder if it’s essentially a New York book?  I will say that there is a set piece towards the end about a reality TV show involving death row inmates, chefs and last suppers that would be worthy to teach to a writing class.  Even so, if we’re talking New York books, Joshua Ferris’ The Unnamed (best book I read in 2010) is where I put my money.

Christie Hodgen – Elegies for the Brokenhearted.  Really lovely structure and style, and a voice consistent with her previous book, Hello, I Must Be Going.  A fine example of a very contemporary voice and subject with a very old-fashioned (and sophisticated) way of telling a story.

Kevin Canty – Everything.  I found this book to be strange, troubling, sad–all the things I love in good writing.  If you haven’t read Canty, you should.  Fantastic use of empty spaces.

Ann Beattie – Walks With Men.  I have read almost everything Ann Beattie has written, including, now, this very slim and fairly slight novel(la).   If you like Beattie, you’ll find the familiar bohemian New York, a little spruced up for the 80′s with designer labels and fancy restaurants.  What was missing for me here was the sense of dread I have come to expect in a Beattie novel.  Eventually, always, something really awful happens to someone you’ve come to love.  Not so here.  I guess that makes for a happy ending?

Patti Smith – Just Kids.  I’m going to reserve judgment.  I haven’t quite finished, and I’m not quite in love.  I know:  blasphemy.

Doug Dorst – The Surf Guru and Other Stories.  Great stories.  Weird, wild, mad.  Sort of futuristic in a way, but also very much grounded in our contemporary times.

Kris Carr – Crazy Sexy Diet.  Dean Ornish’s “Reverse and Prevent Heart Disease” with a few extra tips and a lot of fancy photos.  This would make the perfect book for someone you know who wants and needs to eat a more balanced, healthier diet, and could benefit from a highly-motivational approach.  I read this to reinforce my belief that diet is everything when it comes to disease.

Deborah Eisenberg – Under the 82^nd Airborne.  Another story collection, equally as weird and disturbing at Dorst’s, but very different.  Disaffected New Yorkers, the world falling apart around them.  Kind of like Didion if Didion chose to meander.  I read Eisenberg a lot in the New Yorker many years ago, and in discovering this collection had forgotten how strange and unsettling her characters were, how complicated her style.  Great inspiration if you’re working on stories–makes you want to write better ones.

Michelle Latiolais – Widow.  This is a gem.  A collection of seventeen very short pieces (essays?  involutions?  stories?)  told with intricacy, intelligence, style and grace.  Latiolais is very smart, and very funny, and if I explain that this is also the book that emerged from the grief over her husband’s untimely death, then I will also be telling you that she is saying something very true and necessary about love, grief and what it means to be alive.

Because I loved Widow the most of all these books, I am giving away a copy to share the pleasure of its words.  Leave a comment about the books you’ve read so far, what you’ve liked (and not) and in a week or so I will have The Girl pick a winner at random.

On to February!

I don’t know as the angels have shown up yet.  I’m distracted by new car pricing (The Husband’s truck dates back to Kurt Cobain’s suicide, yes, we bought it the same week) and job seeking (hello stalled economy, nice to meet you) but even so I see a bit of progress on Part II of the New Novel.

Back at the end of the summer, before school started up again, I managed to finish a handwritten draft.  Now, before school starts again, I’m working on the typing.  Sad to say, my handwriting is terrible and the going is rather slow.  However, in reading the handwritten draft, I remain even more committed to this process.  I am convinced, for example, that despite the extra time spent in typing, voice and style are so improved by handwriting first drafts, I am, in fact, saving time for myself in the end.  It’s very hard to manufacture or reproduce the kind of originality that happens on the (handwritten) page, that element of surprise.  I came upon this passage yesterday, one I did not remember, although I did recall that when I wrote it, I knew it was not the kind of writing I’d allow myself to do on a screen.  It just seemed different somehow, vaguely liberated:

“There are all kinds of wrong,” Peter said to Donny.  “There’s the wrong of not knowing what matters, or why.  That’s the wrong of being lost, I guess, or confused.  I never had that one, and I more or less think I never will, although I’ve heard it’s just as unpleasant as any other wrong.  It’s why people work jobs they don’t like or stay married when they’re unhappy.  Then there’s the wrong of doing something you know in your heart isn’t right, going ahead and doing it even if it will hurt other people, doing it because you don’t care about the other people you’ve hurt.  I’ve done that kind of wrong as well, but not very often, and not when it came to important things.  There’s the wrong when what you do won’t hurt anyone but if too many people did it, society would fall apart, things like stealing, or speeding or cheating on your taxes.  I’ve done that too, except it never made me feel like I’d accomplished anything important, anything that mattered.  The last kind of wrong is when you do something you are convinced is right, maybe you tell yourself all the reasons it’s right—maybe some of those reasons don’t actually make sense, if you start to take them apart, maybe they’re hubris, and ego—but you find them and they seem sound and logical and you have all the arguments lined up and you go ahead with the thing you’re convinced is right and, guess what?  It turns out to be one hundred percent wrong.  You’ve completely fucked up and you had no idea or intention of doing so.”

I do believe this is the longest bit of dialogue I’ve ever written.  Again, not something I’d let happen on a computer screen.  I didn’t even know how long the dialogue was until I typed it up (almost a whole page) and had I known, I would have surely cut it off somewhere in the middle.  My characters don’t give long speeches; they interrupt one another.  But in looseleaf, in bed, Peter found some longer point he had to make to his son, Donny, and I allowed him.

This small moment gives me greater hope that if I stick to my perch, and avoid the distractions, a few angels might come along after all.