The Unsinkable Priscilla Long

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If you have been my student or talked about writing with me, then you probably already know that Priscilla Long, author of The Writer’s Portable Mentor and other books, has been my friend for 30 years.

We met while I was studying for my MFA in poetry at the University of Washington and Priscilla, for her fiction MFA. Or, she was supposed to be studying fiction. After taking a workshop with Colleen McElroy, we decided to exchange poetry manuscripts, and we began meeting for dinner almost every week to rework and deepen our poems.

At our table at the old College Inn in the university district, I confessed to Priscilla my very un-feminist craving for a baby and she told me, “For heaven’s sake! If you want a baby, have a baby! Don’t blame feminism!”

When my twins were a year old and I stalled on my Ph.D. dissertation, Priscilla saved me. “Send me seven pages! They can be terrible! Even with two babies you can write seven terrible pages!” She coaxed that dissertation out of me, never rewriting a single sentence, always telling me, “Of course you can do it!”

So, for those reasons and many others, I am very pleased to direct you to this bio, newly posted at History Link, the free on-line encyclopedia of Washington state history.

https://www.historylink.org/File/20845

More from the fabulous Lauren Sapala

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After attending the Pacific Northwest Writers Association conference this past week — riding high on a wave of energy from great classes, rubbing elbows with all sorts of eager writers, and being invited to submit my mystery novel to one agency and two small publishers — I’ve come home to get to work on the final (one hopes) revision … only to (inevitably) crash.

Part of this, I know, is not about my book at all. It’s about being elbow-to-elbow for four days with a gazillion other people and faking being extroverted and friendly. I can do it. (I like to think I’m actually rather good at being with people.) But it wears me out and makes me want to spend about a month hibernating with a book — not my own, but maybe a stack of Kate Atkinson or Henning Mankell mysteries.

I really don’t have time for that, not when I promised to submit my mystery sometime in the next three weeks!

Just in time to pick me up, dry me off, and get me moving again in the right direction on my own writing, this morning I found an email in my in-box from the fabulous Lauren Sapala, announcing her new book, The INFJ Revolution: Reclaim Your Power, Live Your Purpose, Heal the World. 

Lauren is the author of one of my favorite writing books, The INFJ Writer, a book I read for the third (or fourth?) time only this summer. Her new book promises to help me “grapple with anxiety, shame, self-doubt, low self-esteem and feeling like an alien … in a world that clashes with [my] deepest values and most deeply held ideals.” Why do I wake at 4 a.m., feeling like a fraud, feeling I was crazy to ever imagine I could write a novel, feeling that I really should just go back to my corner and scribble in my journal and not ever expect anyone to read what I write? Why do I keep beating my head against this particular wall of wanting-to-be-a-novelist?

I don’t know why, but sometimes it helps to be with someone who understands. So, Lauren to the rescue.

(In the interest of full-disclosure, I took the Myers-Briggs while in college, but don’t remember the results; according to 16 Personalities, I’m an INFP-T).

I immediately ordered my copy of The INFJ Revolution. Her books are available only on Kindle or as Kindle paperbacks — I recommend getting the paper version, so you can mark them up and reread until they’re tattered. And then,  I hope you write!

Luminous and Compassionate: Good Goals

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How did my daughters get so old?

Today my twins–Pearl and Annie–those tiny babies that we brought home in 1993–turn 26.

I have been reading old notebooks that I scribbled in when they were much younger (playing soccer, needing rides to friends’ houses and to the swimming pool), and I found this passage from the introduction to Steve Kowit’s In the Palm of Your Hand: The Poet’s Portable Workshop:

Poetry, in the end, is a spiritual endeavor. Though there is plenty of room to be playful and silly, there is much less room to be false, self-righteous, or small-minded. To write poetry is to perform an act of homage and celebration–even if one’s poems are full of rage, lamentation and despair. To write poetry of a higher order demands that we excise from our lives as much as we can that is petty and meretricious and that we open our hearts to the suffering of this world, imbuing our art with as luminous and compassionate a spirit as we can.

You could substitute parenting–and though I wish I could deny the moments of rage, lamentation and despair, there they are, inked across the pages of my notebooks. So, with my apologies to Kowit:

Parenting, in the end, is a spiritual endeavor. Though there is plenty of room to be playful and silly, there is much less room to be false, self-righteous, or small minded. To be a mother or a father is to perform an act of homage and celebration–even if one’s family life is sometimes buffeted by rage, lamentation and despair. To parent in this higher way demands that we excise from our lives as much as we can that is petty and meretricious and that we open our hearts to the suffering of this world, imbuing our interactions with our children with as luminous and compassionate a spirit as we can.

You could substitute teaching, or…anything. How can we, today, imbue our lives with a luminous and compassionate spirit?

My friend Louise says to her sons (and sometimes to me), “I’ve really enjoyed being on this bus ride with you.”

They are 26 now, and their baby sister will be 20 in 10 days. I can see them, still trying to figure out their lives, to become who they are. But I’m also a work in progress–still learning how to parent them. And I’m still working at that “luminous and compassionate” thing.

The first task of the poet is to create the person who will write the poems.

-Stanley Kunitz

 

 

Who’s in Your Circle?

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Sometime late last fall, one of my daughters had a work crisis. It wasn’t the run-of-the-mill, ordinary crap that happens at work–it was huge and it threatened to crush her spirit.

If you have met my kids, then you know that they do not like taking advice from their mom. Usually, if I think it’s a good idea, they run skipping and laughing in the other direction. This time, however, my kiddo came to me and said, “What would you do?”

This is what I said.

Pay very very close attention to this. You are being taught something that you have to learn if you’re going to stick in this career. Learn all you can from this. Go in every day determined to learn all that you can.

Don’t defend yourself. Stay open.

Stop calling it a crisis, stop calling it horrible. Call it a challenge. Call it an opportunity.

Know that I absolutely believe in you. Know that I absolutely believe in your ability to grow from this.

The really cool thing? She did.

At the beginning of this episode, she was removed from her classroom assignment and told by the principal that maybe she shouldn’t be a teacher. One week in, the principal admitted, “We threw you into the deep end of the pool.” By the end of her half-year contract, the principal wrote a glowing recommendation letter.

This past week I have been a dark place. My husband is better, he’s reading books and doing crossword puzzles again, and he’s even made it back to the gym. He’s doing chores around the house. He’s cheerful! Meanwhile, I’m angry and defensive. I’ve felt all alone and embattled. I’ve given over precious writing time to watching television. I’ve raged and wept.

And I’ve reached out to friends, and I’ve shown up at Writing Lab. I’ve reread The Circle and reread Parker Palmer’s chapters on his circles of friends. I’ve read poetry. I’ve taken long walks in nature. I’ve called on God. I’ve thrown myself on God’s mercy. I’ve remembered my advice to my daughter last fall:

Stop calling it a crisis — learn all you can — keep your heart open — this is the way forward.

Someday, honey, you’re going to look back on this and see that it was where something wonderful began.