Nag, nag, nag

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“Intimacy is anarchic and mutual and definitionally incompatible with control.” Jonathan Franzen

I’m sick, sick enough that I felt justified in calling in sick to the college and going back to bed. I thought I would get up at ten or eleven and work on-line. Instead I slept nearly all day. But I also did some reading (when the meds were at their best and I didn’t have a crushing headache on top of this sore throat and cough). Somewhere — I can’t remember where! (I blame the meds) — I came across a comment about nagging. This is interesting, I thought. It’s a theme! When we nag, the comment ran, we don’t make progress. Did so! Did not! Did so! I thought of an exchange with Pearl not too long ago. I was giving her a ride to church, and as I parked in the lot, I patted her knee and said, “I’ve enjoyed this talk.” She pushed open the car door and jumped out, then leaned back in and said: “Actually? It was more of a lecture.” Slam.

When you negotiate you keep your options open. You agree to try some things, experiment and see what happens next. When that voice in your head says, “I can’t do that,” try to answer with another voice that says, “Well, could you do this? Could you just take a baby step toward that?”

Nagging or Negotiating?

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I’ve been meaning to post an announcement (ta da!) for Annie — she passed her summer math class after all and is now happily enrolled in Math for Educators, the first math class she has ever loved. On the first day of classes, she told me that she was just going to drop from the new class and see if she could enroll late to repeat Math 90. I suggested that she talk to both teachers. “They might say no, Annie,” I told her. “They have a right to say no. But you have a right to ask.” First her Math for Educators teacher said she could stay in the class regardless. Then her Math 90 teacher recalculated the grade and discovered that Annie had a 2.2. Annie texted me (about 20 times) and came home for dinner BEAMING.

In my Creative Nonfiction class, my students listed trips, events, and 30 chapters, then chose one story to freewrite on in class. I challenged them to include some dialogue. When we read aloud afterwards, one student confessed that he had a terrible memory. “I don’t think I can do this,” he said, meaning tell a true story. “I never remember what people say. I’m either going to have to make stuff up or drop out.”

I suggested he try harder, and this is where my “nagging or negotiating” title comes from. I think I nagged him to try. A better approach would be to negotiate. Not all essays, even in the category of “Creative,”  after all, include dialogue. Even in a true story, the narrator might admit, I can’t remember the specific words, but our conversation went something like this…

He could carry a notebook and jot down what he wants to remember. He may find himself remembering more.

 

A Poem by Margaret Riordan

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I’m pleased to introduce a poem by my friend Margaret Riordan, Celtic Bard.

Dignity

When your heart is broken in the palace, grab your knapsack and pack lightly.
A blanket, a few pairs of loose trousers, a couple of long tunics,
Something for your head to protect it from the heat
Then join the next caravan leaving town.

Cross the desert in the night with strangers,
See the blanket of diamond stars against the velvet deep
Let them light your tears that fall without shame.
Hold nothing back.

There in the desert, no one can see. You’re alone with strangers
Listening only to the sound of camels’ feet plodding in sand,
The jostling of their packs and murmur of voices passing time.
Let your legs grow strong with traveling

So when you come to the city you will be ready for the physician who knows the secrets
Of herbs and human heart. Sit with him on the dusty street corner and absorb his knowledge,
More precious than any lost love you mourn.
Let him teach you how to heal your own dignity.

Stay gone until you find in that wisdom some places
Belonging only to you and God. Let your soul grow strong from listening
And your freedom grow until your own inviolability is sure enough to
Withstand any windstorm, any drought, any onslaught of pain.

Remember that your solitude is more precious than any palace intrigue.
Find the Truth that is greater than this drama that threatens to destroy you. Become your own person, unshaken by the shifting dunes of fate.
Pack lightly, because on this journey all you need is your courage and your heart.

Bad Habits vs. Good

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During the first week of my Creative Nonfiction class, I spend a lot of time asking students where they might find themselves writing and under what circumstances. In a notebook or on a laptop? Do they listen to music? Do they need a cup of coffee? A glass of scotch? A cigarette? Complete silence? Prefer to write in noisy coffee shops? In the morning? Late at night? I tell them to buy a cool notebook and pen for writing in class. I bully them (a little) to write every day, even if just for this quarter, as an experiment if not as a burgeoning passion. Naturally I start thinking about such things in my own life, too.

I write every day, early in the morning, in my potting shed (as you know). But I think I could get a little more writing done if I could establish a habit of writing in my office at the college — just a little — every afternoon. As Dorothea Brande says, even the meanest employer has to give you a break sometime.

I’m reminded of my days as a waitress when I noticed that the cocktail waitresses always took their 2 10-minute breaks. One before “lunch” (whenever that fell in their shift) and one after. I asked one day, “Why don’t the rest of us take 10-minute breaks?” “Because you don’t smoke,” the cocktail waitress told me.

If you smoke, maybe you can write while you smoke. Maybe you can just tell your supervisor that you need a smoke, and write instead. Maybe you can tell your supervisor that you’re taking a 10-minute writing break.

Writing is a much better habit than any other I can think of.