writing playlist

The other day, a friend asked me what’s on my iPod’s “writing playlist.” (If not in quiet, I write to two items on my iPod: Mozart’s Requiem…or my writing playlist). I promised her that I would share my playlist, which is as follows (in order):

1. Come to Me (Peace) –Mary J. Blige
2. Beautiful – Akon
3. Viva La Vida — Coldplay
4. Death — White Lies
5. Everybody’s Changing – Keane
6. Death and All His Friends – Coldplay
7. Chasing Cars – Snow Patrol
8. Fix You – Coldplay
9. High – James Blunt
10. How to Save a Life – The Fray
11. Crack the Shutters – Snow Patrol
12. Somewhere Only We Know – Keane
13. Lovers in Japan/Reign of Love – Coldplay
14. In Your Eyes – Peter Gabriel
15. Med sud i eyrum – Sigur Ros
16. Sense of Touch – Mark Isham
17. Goodbye My Lover – James Blunt
18. This Woman’s Work – Maxwell
19. Hurt – Johnny Cash
20. Wuthering Heights – Kate Bush
21. Same Mistake – James Blunt
22. Hallelujah – Jeff Buckley
23. The Blower’s Daughter – Damien Rice
24. A Whiter Shade of Pale – Procol Harum
25. Breathe Me – Sia
26. Nothing Compares 2 U – Sinéad O’Connor
27. Life in Technicolor – Coldplay
28. Svefn-g-englar – Sigur Rós
29. Green Grass of Tunnel – Mum
30. Vid Spilum endalaust – Sigur Rós
31. Marl1 – Tsewer Beta
32. Alone in Kyoto – Air
33. One Perfect Sunrise – Orbital
34. Deep Blue Day – Brian Eno
35. Halcyon On On – Orbital
36. Adagio for Strings – Tiesto
37. Love U More – Sunscreem
38. Stay Down – Mary J. Blige
39. How to Be Dead – Snow Patrol

(Yes. I listen to James Blunt).
I have other playlists too, like an “upbeat” playlist to which I workout/jog/run. Because my writing playlist is chock full of emo music. And emo music is sucky for workouts.

i can’t hear you

I rarely talk about my stroke anymore, I am so determined to put it behind me. But occasionally, I’ll be reminded that I’m not exactly the same person I once was, and it takes me a little while to absorb that fact. Sure, we’re not the same person we were just 24 hours ago, because of all the things that happen to us in a day and all those things change us in tiny ways…but when you are changed by illness, especially at a younger age, there’s a sense that your life was…disrupted, that these changes don’t come about by normal process. Of course, illness is a part of life, but there’s an anger/discouragement attached to that…disruption.

I’ve been back to 99% with a few palpable differences for about a year now. A couple differences: I now like beer (I used to hate it), I have huge empathy with people who have learning disabilities, especially those who don’t have very visible/obvious disabilities.

Also–the stroke damaged my verbal/auditory short term memory the most. I had quite a few tests measuring brain functionality in the months following the stroke, and they all indicated an almost 100% loss of verbal learning. Over time, much of my brain function returned (the things I missed most and were glad to see back: being able to HAVE a short term memory..and my coping skills, so that I wouldn’t break down and cry or fly into a rage at every insult or setback). Apparently, the thalamus helps with coping mechanisms.

But these days, my verbal short term memory is still very nearly absent. I am not an auditory learner. I took a test alongside my students trying to figure out if we’re 1) auditory learners, 2) visual learners, or 3) kinesthetic learners. Many of the students came out in some sort of combination, with no one single learning style dominating. But when we shared our scores, everyone was surprised: I had nearly zero auditory learning capability. What I had suspected was confirmed.

That means–if you introduce yourself to me, and I don’t see your name written down (or quickly figure out a visual mneumonic device like “Robert is wearing a red scarf. R for Robert. R for Red. Robert. Robert. Robert. RED SCARF!….what was his name? Red scarf?”), it is nearly impossible for me to remember you. This was painfully obvious to me at a literary reading the other night when the other writers and I introduced ourselves to each other in a noisy room. I had to ask them several times what their names were, and still struggled. (The next day, when our group picture was published on the web, with our names written down underneath, I learned their names immediately–precisely because it was all visually enabled learning).

Now, some of you may think this is completely normal, and it may still fall within normal range–but for me, this is a CHANGE from who I used to be. I used to remember names like a wizard. (Now that I teach, I take the student roster and read it over and over again and over and over again so that I can memorize student names within 2-3 classes. It’s important to know people’s names).

At the reading, I stuck to the two other writers who were the kindest to me. I have learned that memory can also go through the emotional center/avenue of the brain–even in the day after my stroke when I was most addled, I remembered the name of my wonderful neurologist, and I couldn’t figure out why I remembered him and no one else. Two years later, my thoughtful primary care physician told me that I probably remembered him because he was kind, and his name was processed by the emotional center of the brain, bypassing normal avenues. Ahhh–and so to this day, if you are kind to me, I will probably remember your name even in a crowded room where your name isn’t written down.

Afterwards, a few Stegner Fellows introduced themselves. I asked for their names over and over–I still didn’t remember. Alas, there is no picture of them on the web with their names written underneath, so their names are now lost to me.

I have always favored one on one interaction over group interaction, but these days I avoid group interaction because it reminds me of the ways in which I struggle.

This deficit has helped me as a teacher, because I try to engage all learning styles: I will write things on the board, read what I’ve put on the board, I will pass out handouts, and then read what’s on the handout. I will put students in small groups, and have them act out exercises. When there’s class discussion, I’ll write key words on the board. After small groups, students will write their answers up on the board. I try to incorporate auditory, visual, and kinesthetic learning styles in my classroom, and at the same time, tell my students that many other teachers will just lecture and expect them to take notes (and thus I teach them note taking skills). I understand what it’s like when a teacher makes you learn in a way that is impossible to you.

When the school year began, I enrolled in a workshop to learn about all the district’s teaching software. The instructor sat us in front of computers, gave us handouts, and then said, “Do NOT turn on the computers. Do NOT touch the computers! Don’t open the handouts! Just LISTEN TO ME.”

Oh.My.G*d. I wanted to scream. None of what he said was going into my brain. I wanted to take notes, because instinctively, that was a way to visualize what he was saying, but he chided me for writing on the handout that was not to be touched. I put down my pen and gave him a dirty look. I wanted to walk out of the room. I suddenly empathized with students who have behavioral problems, I was so frustrated with the situation and my own helplessness. I was furious. I sighed.

I raised my hand and asked, “I am not an auditory learner. Can you please put something up on the screen? Can I open the handout?”

He said no. I was so mad, I disregarded him from that moment on. I tuned out.

Acceptance. It’s hard. Friends tell me this loss of mental ability/memory is just old age–and it very well could be (is 36 old?), and many times, I do shrug it off. I’m grateful to be in the place I’m in now–to be able to write, to just be myself again, to experience life and all its details. But occasionally, like when I’m at a party and I can’t remember people’s names, and I feel like I’m coming off like an absent minded dork for not remembering when everyone else can…I’m reminded of who I am now.

is it true?

We’re reading American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang in my college classroom and we’re discussing stereotypes and racism to go along with the reading. We’ve read Brent Staples essay, “Black Men and Public Spaces,” and excerpts from Margaret Cho’s book, I have Chosen to Stay and Fight.

Their response?

My students (a very diverse group: my class is 60% Asian Pacific American, about 15% Latino/a, and 15% African American) tell me that racism is no longer a problem. They say no one makes fun of them for their race, and that they do not feel discrimination based on race.

They read the Brent Staples essay with a nostalgic bent. They read Margaret Cho’s work, and when I said it had been written in the past few years, they were surprised, and responded, “Why is she so angry? She seems really pissed off.” As if there was nothing to be angry about.

When I discussed the character of “Chin-Kee” in ABC, they didn’t realize the name was based on the word “chinky,” a derogatory word for Chinese. I asked them what they thought of the word, and I got blank stares. What did they think? A student’s hand wavered as it was raised. “I call myself chinky (she’s Asian American). It’s not offensive.”

It’s not offensive?

“No, we call ourselves chinky. It’s no big deal.”

Has the word “chinky” been reclaimed in the mien of “queer?”

“Ms. —-?” asked a student, “When was the last time you experienced racism?” As if it was some old artifact.

My eyes opened wide. I get ching-chang-chonged in London. In France. And just the other day (and this is not racism but ignorance but it is a precursor to racism), I discovered a new coworker was confusing me with the ONE OTHER ASIAN AMERICAN WOMAN in the office. (He kept sending me emails that seemed out of context with my work–after awhile, aha, I figured out, he meant to send it to the other Asian American in the office).

Whoa! they exclaimed, collectively. As if I had come from another planet explaining the ceremonies of life elsewhere.

“If you say racism is gone and it’s no longer a problem, then I am certainly hopeful for our future as a society. I sure hope that’s the case,” I said.

Is it true? Is racism gone, like my students say?

Or is it because my students probably never leave Oakland or the Bay Area, an area relatively open minded and diverse in comparison to the rest of the world?

Cheering from the bleachers: NaNoWriMo

NaNoWriMo, aka National Novel Writing Month is upon us. Several years ago, I heard about NaNoWriMo and signed up with enthusiasm; the idea of writing a novel within a months’ time was too tempting to disregard. It had been my dream (and still is) to write a novel.

I learned that NaNoWriMo isn’t for me. It was such an oppressive process (write 50,000 words in a month, nearly 2,000 words a day, without regard to quality) that I was driven into a six months long writers’ block afterwards, throughout the long winter of 2003-2004. I was miserable trying to keep up the pace, and I dropped out after a couple of weeks with a collection of words I can only describe as gobbledigook. (Over at Writerland, Meghan’s description of her NaNoWriMo book jibes with what I produced in those two weeks).

NaNoWriMo isn’t my process. I’ve been plugging away at this draft of the novel in earnest for nearly a year now, and I’m about two-thirds of the way through. I’m not editing as I go, but this is the speed at which I write, and my process doesn’t involve writing fifty thousand words in one month (p.s. my novel’s first draft is going to end up at around 100,000 words, double the NaNoWriMo goal).

I estimate that I will probably revise the draft at least five times, if not ten times, before I consider sending it out to an agent. And then after that, I estimate, I will have to revise the draft again (maybe another five times). This entire process will take years.

NaNoWriMo is a great exercise–but that’s exactly what it is: an exercise. For those of you who did sign up for NaNoWriMo, I cheer you on (wearing some of my many NaNoWriMo tshirts). And hope you get what you need out of it, whether you are a new mother re-engaging with her writing and using NaNoWriMo to kickstart that re-engagement, or someone who wants to get all the words down on the page.

And for the record: my friend Tayari Jones, the author of Leaving Atlanta and The Untelling, has a post up on why she doesn’t participate in NaNoWriMo. It’s well worth a read, whether or not you agree with her.

F is for Fall

F is for Fall. Every year, I wait for the sunlight to wane into pale yellow streaks that color a white wall ivory, for the evening temperatures to fall, to celebrate leaves that turn into fiery colors until they drop as if burnt to a crisp, and break out my scarves from the closet. Oh, Fall.

I’m creative during Fall. I like cooler weather…and perhaps because of my lifelong pattern of returning to academic studies in the Fall, my work ethic seems more honed. Or maybe it’s because I grew up a chubby child ashamed of her pudgy self, and prefer to wrap myself in clothing. I’m not a summer sort of person, I’m never comfortable in a swimsuit, I don’t like to tan, I don’t like the heat, I prefer to do summer activities like hiking in the Fall (Autumn is when the mosquitoes die–hooray!), and I don’t even like the long days.

Give me a sweater. A jacket. A scarf. Boots. A book. Ingredients for apple tarte tartin. Pumpkins. Cinnamon. A blanket. Fuzzy slippers. Hot tea. Give me Fall.

——

Joining Charlotte’s Web, The Contact Zone, Asiatic Fish, and Fog City Writer in working through the alphabet with short, memoir-like pieces. It’s called Alphabet: A History.

Previous letters:

• A is for Aub Zam Zam
• B is for Boys
• C is for Corpse
• D is for Dirty
• E is for Earthquake

Quick Blog, October

Above: salmon (kokanee, to be specific), spawning, in a Sierra stream. Kokanee salmon turn a brilliant red when it comes time to spawn. I could have watched them for hours.

Read/Reading:
I read Nova’s debut YA novel, Dani Noir and felt myself bursting with pride. My friend. Wrote. An. Awesome YA Novel.

I read The History of Love by Nicole Krauss, and I have been aimless since, looking for a book with which to fall in love.

I just started reading Dan Chaon’s Await Your Reply, and am finding its structure very interesting: three separate stories–and will they ever collide?

I read Julie and Julia. I read it with great hope, but ended up skimming through the last half of the book. As a good friend of mine said to me, “it’s a book for people who don’t read.” In my words, I call it a “blog quilt” (for those of you who don’t know, the book is inspired by her novel, and reads like blog posts slapped together). I am starting to sound like Michiko Kakutani–I must stop.

(Oh, and I read a few book reviews in the nytimes. They convinced me to NEVER read book reviews, at least while I’m writing my novel).

Wrote/Writing:
The novel. I am refusing to write short stories until I finish a draft of this novel. I am bushwhacking my way through the gorgeous middle. Every once in awhile, I find myself surprised while writing–my character meeting someone new, a new, unplanned plot development. I love feeling surprised while writing my novel.

Viewed:
OMG. It’s Television Season Premiere time. Help me, Jeebus. The only thing I can do is NOT get hooked on new shows.

Memorable eats:
Persimmons. The other day, on my usual expedition for persimmons, the dude at our small neighborhood grocery store pointed at my bag of persimmons. (The store has been around since before the Great Depression, when the owner gave out store credit to everyone in the neighborhood because he realized that people couldn’t afford to pay for groceries–and it was, and still is, a beloved store–plus if you hang out enough, you can spot MIchael Chabon who lives in the hood). The bag was so full of persimmons, that when I picked it up, the plastic strained against the spherical fruit. He asked, “What are you going to do with all the persimmons?”

“Eat them!” I said, sounding very much like a six year old with a bag of candy.

“Oh!” he said, surprised that a thirtysomething woman would sound like a six year old with a bag of candy.

I am eating persimmons like a mad woman. The season ends soon, I have to get my entire year’s worth of persimmons in my belly NOW.

Ate Out:
Afternoon tea with an old family friend (and beforehand, gallery hopping, where I fell in love with a painting).

Cooked:
I ate spaghetti squash using a recipe from Kalyn’s Kitchen for the first time. And I LIKED IT.

Happenings:

• Keeping up my exercise regimen. I’m up to 2.0-3.0 miles running nonstop. It feels GOOD. But I get bored sometimes, while running. What do runners do to keep themselves entertained while running? Other than the iPod?
• Set a new goal with Foodie McBody: we’re going to lose inches in our waist. Our goal is to get below a certain circumference…she has 1-2 inches to lose, I have 3.
• To that end, I stopped eating chocolate. That in and of itself, has made me lose three pounds. I’m also trying to eat more protein (even though I am still the carb monster, and have no intention of low-carbing it).
• More litmag rejections.
• Planted the winter crops for my veggie garden. Brussel sprouts! Oh. And I started getting ripe tomatoes in October.
• Fall is here–crisp air, breezes, crunchy leaves!
• I’m having an amazing semester teaching college composition classes. It has been psychically rewarding and fun. Time consuming, but fulfilling.
• Opened the door last night to let the dogs out, and heard a commotion in the sky. And then, I heard a honk. Honk. Honk. Geese! Flying south for the winter. Have a good time in Los Angeles, geese.
• Celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary. A prime rib dinner (I hate hunks of meat except for…prime rib!). And then a hike in an aspen grove in the Sierras.
• My husband read my novel-thus-far and he LIKED IT.
• Watched salmon spawning in a Sierra stream.
• Smiled from ear to ear walking in golden aspen groves.

random wish:

Dear Powers That Be:

I’d like an additional 8th day of the week for me to enjoy/utilize. And–I’d like only for me, and a select few friends/family (of my choosing, of course), to exist on that 8th day. (The rest of the world can be paused perhaps, while we enjoy that extra day).

Thank you,
Jade Park

p.s. Also, I would not like that extra time to age us. Please withholding aging from the extra day of the week.

p.p.s. I am beginning to be scared that perhaps this wish might come true. But at the same time, I am also very excited at the prospect as well. Please do not confuse my fear for hesitation.

p.p.p.s.s.s.p.s. Thank you.

E is for Earthquake

We were in marching band practice (yes! band geek! complete with band camp!) in a parking lot across the street from campus when suddenly I heard the sound of an eighteen wheeler truck going down the street…only there was no truck on the street. Where was the truck? It was 7:42am in the morning, and the street was empty, save for the occasional sedan.

We heard the sound of the truck above our music, the sound was that loud. It was that loud. It was THAT loud. Our brains alerted us, nary a split second later, that it could NOT have been a truck, and so we stopped marching and lowered our flutes, clarinets, saxophones, trombones, trumpets, and baritones and stood, confounded.

And then the oddest sight: concrete lamp posts waving in the air like dandelion stalks in a strong, yet indecisive breeze.

It was then, as we stood still, watching those lamp posts waving in the air like metronome pendulums, that we saw the cars bobbing up and down, and strangest of all, we felt the earth beneath our feet move.

It was an earthquake, later named the Whittier Narrows earthquake. (Seriously, they should come up with sexier names for these things, like how Hurricanes get named human first names–like Katrina).

I’d lost my earthquake virginity; that was my first big earthquake. Before that day, “earthquake” was a distant and exotic word, like “avalanche” or “famine” or “war,” one that I thought would never walk into my life. Most of all, it was an ABSTRACT term but that day it became a concrete term describing the earth rolling under my feet, in the same unsteady way one feels when walking off a people mover onto solid ground. Or like the deck of a boat, swaying underneath my feet. Odd. Logic-defying.

Immediately, two kids starting screaming and crying. I scoffed at them, but deep inside, if I had been entirely honest with myself, I could identify with the terror of having the earth, something that was supposed to always hold steady, something we’d always known to hold steady, move beneath your feet.

***

Many kids went home that day crying or in reluctant terror, even though I stuck out the school day in awed silence.  Those of us who stayed in school played out our shock in numerous ways, including entertaining stories of where we were when the earthquake hit.  One of them, my friend C, kept her eyeliner as she’d applied it that day, a jagged line sprouting from her eyelid; she had been in the middle of putting on her eyeliner when the earthquake hit.

And me?  For months afterward, the sound of an eighteen wheeler made me think earthquake.  For months afterward, the vibrations on the ground from a passing eighteen wheeler made me think earthquake.   Years later, in New York City, I’d feel the subway move beneath my feet and think earthquake.

***

Joining Charlotte’s Web and The Contact Zone in working through the alphabet with short, memoir-like pieces. It’s called Alphabet: A History.

Previous letters:

• A is for Aub Zam Zam
• B is for Boys
• C is for Corpse
• D is for Dirty

D is for Dirty

I used to carry around disinfectant wipes and/or a bottle of purell with me all the time. Before the days of wet wipes and packaged purell, I would carry little packets of rubbing alcohol wipes–you know, the kind they have in bulk supply at doctors’ offices. On public transportation, I would wipe down the seat before I sat down, or wipe down a pole before wrapping my hand around to hold. Or anywhere public, for that matter. During flu season, I’d wish I could sanitize the air of viruses, and all year round I feared bacteria floating through the air, let alone those residing on said seats and poles and handrails.

I was always this way–when I once rode the RTD (L.A.’s MTA used to be called the RTD–the misnomer, “Rapid Transit District”) to the LA County Museum of Art (LACMA) with my friend in high school (hello, from the suburbs of LA this is a huge expedition), I diligently wiped down my seat before sitting down, to the stares of other riders.

My mother was a nurse who, when she cleaned the house, called the act, “disinfecting,” using surgical grade cleaners to wipe down kitchen counters until she stripped the finish off of surfaces. Nothing was clean until the germs were gone. She would chant, “Once you get something dirty, it will never be the same again, never the same clean it once was when new.” That line stuck with me.

My friend would brush the leaves off a wooden bench. Was that bench clean? No, because the germs were still there. Wipe, wipe.

This compulsion only increased when I worked at a medical facility, surrounded by disinfectants and germ-killing procedures. It also didn’t help that there was a lot…and I mean A LOT of greed in that particular corner of the medical industry. Surgeons would scream at me if surgeries were cancelled; not only were they dismayed at the cancellation and the impact on their schedule, they were mostly furious at the loss of revenue.

Until then, I’d always seen doctors as role models, as highly educated and deft practitioners of saving lives and good health. Ok, maybe doctors could be super horny and full of drama, like in St. Elsewhere or ER or Grey’s Anatomy but no one’s a truly greedy asshole, not even McSteamy. It shocked me to see that patients could be seen as revenue sources, and it shocked me to see the behavior of very very greedy doctors. It felt…corrupt. I felt dirty. I felt unclean. I felt I would never the same as when I was new. I felt I would never be clean again. I felt dirty.

And so I would wash my hands.

I would wash my hands again.

I’d get screamed at. I’d feel pressure to make money in an industry vertical that I’d before seen as altruistic practitioners of medicine ala Marcus Welby, M.D. I would go into a dark empty room and cry. I’d never heard such profanity directed at me in a workplace before.

I’d wash my hands again.

I’d wipe my keyboard.
I’d wipe my desk.

I’d get screamed at–why is everything cancelled? We’d undergo inspection by the Department of Health Services. They’d scrutinize every single corner of our facility, pore through our procedural manuals. Were we clean enough?

I’d wash my hands. I’d wipe my keyboard. I wiped the surface of every single thing. I’d watch the scrub techs mop the floor of the surgical suite with a special mop only used for that room. With industrial grade disinfectant that smelled sweet and artificial. I’d wash my hands. I’d wipe my keyboard. I’d wipe the doorknobs.

I’d hold my breath. Once I even wore a surgical mask. I took it off at the behest of my coworkers, but I’m telling you, I felt SO MUCH BETTER wearing that surgical mask.

I quit that job. I applied to, and got into MFA programs. I kept carrying around surgical gloves and purell and wet wipes.

I went through a bottle of purell each week. I went through my portable packets of wet wipes more than once a week. I wore surgical gloves when I used the computer lab at school and had to use a shared keyboard. A fellow MFA student leaped up and said with a smile on her face and concern in her voice, “Jade, what is UP with the gloves?!” I would wear surgical gloves when I went to a buffet, the thought of touching the same serving tongs that some stranger had just used seconds before me gave me the heebies.

I quit going to buffets because the thought of people breathing on my food, and possibly coughing and sneezing onto the open vats of food gave me heebies I couldn’t mitigate.

And finally. And finally, I said I couldn’t deal with this. More specifically, my husband said to STOP. STOP. STOP. STOP.

So I stopped carrying purell and wet wipes. I put my hands on things. I washed them afterwards, but I did not use purell and wet wipes. No purell. No wet wipes. NO disinfecting.

I chanted to myself that viruses eventually die, and that shopping cart over there had probably not been touched in an hour. At first I picked abandoned shopping carts in the far corner of the parking lot. Even then, I made my husband push the cart when possible. And then I was, one day, okay with using one that someone had just abandoned a few seconds previous. And no wiping.

I still wash my hands a lot. But I refuse to carry the purell and wet wipes. I met a friend I hadn’t seen in years and years. She asked me if I had a wet wipe. I said no. She was surprised. I told her, I don’t carry them anymore.

She said, eyes widening with surprise, that’s good.

***

Joining Charlotte’s Web in working through the alphabet with short, memoir-like pieces. It’s called Alphabet: A History.

Previous letters:

• A is for Aub Zam Zam
• B is for Boys
• C is for Corpse

C is for Corpse

I’d never seen a corpse before. But there he/it/the body was, in a small studio apartment the size of a basic motel room, on the bed, on his/its/the body’s back, the face frozen in suffering, spelling out every single effort of last breath and pain. Not a peaceful death even if perhaps it occurred in sleep, the eyes closed.

If I had not known this was my friend’s deceased father, I might have initially guessed he was asleep, until the stillness of his body would make it clear that he had passed.

She had called me an hour earlier. “My father died last night.” He had been fighting, and losing, his battle with prostate cancer. “I don’t know what to do, he was Jewish, I don’t know what to do.” She was not a practicing Jew–she had grown up in Russia behind the Iron Curtain, with little knowledge of Jewish practices. She wanted me to help.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll be over.” I didn’t know much, either, just what I’d learned in my studies during Orthodox conversion. Just what was in books. Asking me to help was an act of desperation. I spotted my copy of Maurice Lamm’s The Jewish Way in Death and Mourning and slipped it into my purse before driving over the bridge to the City.

And now there I was, feeling inadequate in the room with her father’s body, a corpse, armed with…a book.

“Hi.” What else could I say?

“Hi,” she said, and I could see she was very far away, by the way she moved. She was a nurse, and she worked with a familiarity with the dead, businesslike and well-practiced in the art of caring for bodies. The only evidence that this was not a normal patient was the way she periodically sighed as she idly straightened his blanket.

Together we opened the book and figured out what to do. We should get a candle. It was the Mission, a candle was fetched. It was an altar candle. Was this okay? I shrugged, it should work. It was lit. We should say a prayer. We should not leave him alone. We should try to bury him today. We should try to find a burial plot. There was a Jewish cemetery nearby. Buy the plainest wooden casket.

We whispered, we moved around the room as if he was asleep. But he was not asleep. He was dead.

I am ashamed to say that I felt a great fear of his body, the corpse, sitting in the room. When the mortuary people came to take his body away, I watched with great awe and relief as they, with great grace, carried him away.

***

Joining Charlotte’s Web in working through the alphabet with short, memoir-like pieces. It’s called Alphabet: A History.

Previous letters:

• A is for Aub Zam Zam
• B is for Boys

An ill-timed comment and my rebuttal

Most ill-timed comment, ever: I ran into a professor from my MFA program on the eve of my departure to a writing residency at Hedgebrook several years ago.

We were both browsing through shoes at REI–I needed “needed” a pair of shoes for Hedgebrook (hey, any reason to buy a pair of shoes, right?)…and she ironically, was also headed to Whidbey Island, where Hedgebrook is located, and needed a pair of shoes for her trip as well. Not that Whidbey Island is a volcanic island with special footwear needs or anything, it was just coincidence that brought us there. (And again, any reason to buy a pair of shoes…)

I had never taken her writing class, but I recognized her from my program and so I said hello. I told her where I was headed in a few days. She mentioned that she knew she’d recognized me from somewhere (i.e., the halls of the English building on campus).

“Ah, Hedgebrook!” she smiled her space-cadet smile, her eyes focused at infinity, even though her face was pointed at me, standing a mere three feet away, that weird polite zone of space, not too far, not too close. “It’s where I went and learned I wasn’t cut out to be a fiction writer.”

What? A nightmare started forming in my head.

“Oh yes, I was writing a novel, and I had a tough time writing while there. I really struggled. I ended up throwing the novel away, and realizing that I should be a journalist!” She was still smiling. Why was she smiling?

“Didn’t that devastate you?” I asked, thinking…I would be FUCKING DEVASTATED. Nightmare definitely forming in my head.

“At the time, yes!” She waved her hands, as if to emphasize the point that it was in the painless, anesthetized, past.

Oh, I said. Oh.

“But have a great time!” she said, pointing at a pair of Keene shoes. “Did you like the pair you just tried on?”

The Keenes were comfortable, but I felt like they looked like Smurf shoes. “I love them,” I lied.

“Oh well then great! I’m going to try a pair!”

And off she went ambling towards a salesperson. Leaving me with a thundercloud over my head.

At Hedgebrook, I struggled with loneliness (a good thing in the long run), until I met a friend for life while there that then blushed the whole experience pink and golden so that now my memories of Hedgebrook are mostly blissful (like birthing a baby, maybe?).

But mostly, I struggled with my writing. My struggle could have been like any other day writing, just staring at the laptop screen, waiting for the Muse to arrive, keeping vigil. But her statement made every one of my struggles with writing larger than they were: Was I a fiction writer? Should I throw this novel away? Should I just…blog? I must just totally suck. Should I just totally give up writing?

She cursed my residency, in some ways, with that extra pound of self-doubt, a pound I did not need to bear. And I still question myself as a fiction writer to this day. Even today, her words resound in my head on my worst writing days, or when I open the mailbox to find another rejection. To be truthful, I find myself wondering if I should still write the day after I’ve received an acceptance letter.

There are many hardships in life that do enlighten us, lead us to self-improvement. But I think self-doubt planted by others…is something we can do without. And for that reason, when people are off to a residency or an MFA program, I only give my blessing.

So…Good luck to all of you beginning your Fall semesters everywhere. Have a great Fall learning, or teaching, or writing, or living, whatever it might be that you begin this season.

B is for Boys

I am tired from starting off my first semester teaching community college. Wow. It really takes a lot out of you–but you go to bed happy and then wake up to a stack of papers to grade and lesson plans to create. Still, I make time to write for a few hours, two days a week. Even though today, I’m so tired, I’m not sure what to do with the Muse if she should happen to visit me during vigil.

But it’s time to jog my head back from teaching to the world of writing…

And thus, I will blog the 2nd installment of Alphabet: A History. I’ve done A (for Aub Zam Zam), it is time for the letter B.

Having just written a a post called My Berkeley, Berkeley is taken. I riffle through the B’s in my life: Beijing, Barcelona, brioche, bologna, butter, Barney Lake, Burgundy (the region, not the wine), burgundy (the wine, not the region), Berkeley Bowl, bees,blue, butter, believe…

(I wrote the above list because I couldn’t let any of the other B’s of my life go without at least a mention).

Boys…

My first best friend was my brother. We were inseparable, and once someone asked if were twins, and I thought that was just brilliant. We began pawning ourselves off as twins from that point on, even going so far as to tell our nursery school/daycare that we were twins.

When my brother’s birthday in February rolled around, the teacher assistants asked me, “How come it’s not your birthday? Aren’t you twins?”

I had to think fast. “My birthday is a few months later,” thinking that twins just meant being the same age. “My birthday is in August,” not realizing that the human gestation period would not allow one child to be born in February and then another in August, six months later, from the same mother.

“Ohhh,” said the lady. I was six, my brother was celebrating his fifth birthday. I felt something unsettled in the air. I stopped telling people we were twins after that.

*

My second best friend was a boy named R******. We still keep in touch today, although being opposite gender, married, and living four hundred miles away (and now across continents, for he has moved to Australia), keeps us at quite a distance. He was a groomsman in my wedding.

I was new to the school. I was seven. When the teacher gave mimeograph worksheets and asked students to pass them down the row, the girl next to me made sure to tear the corner off my sheet before handing mine to me. Her name was Bonnie. I did not know exactly why she did that, only that she did it to my paper and no other, on a consistent basis.

I didn’t know with whom to play at recess and with whom to eat at lunchtime. I’d always lived in cities, and this was my first (and last time) living in the suburbs. I remember staring at the expanse of the playground and feeling very very small. There was so much space that everyone seemed to be standing very apart, even if they were standing next to each other.

I missed the city. I missed a classroom in which no one tore my paper before handing it to me.

A boy came up to me. He said his name was R****** He looked like Opie, strawberry blonde hair and all. “Hi, my name is R******. Do you want to play together?” I grabbed his hand. We ate lunch. We walked around the playground, holding hands to the melody of other kids singing, “R****** and ____ sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g!”

We weren’t kissing. What were they talking about? We ignored them, and played in the dirt below the trees. I remember one thing we used to do was take a kitchen magnet and run it through the dusty soil…what emerged were a million particles of metal hanging onto the magnet, like fuzzy hair. We collected the metallic dust into plastic sandwich bags. For what purpose, I do not remember. It was just fun, and I thought, interesting.

No one talked to me except for R****** and for that, he was my best friend. He was also the smartest boy in our class, and we got top awards throughout elementary school. He and I were crowned “king and queen” academic achievers at the end of sixth grade.

When puberty hit, my parents said I could no longer be friends with him. I thought that was unfair, and I did not understand their reasoning. They didn’t tell me their reasoning, but I knew, years later, what they feared: that I would become romantically involved with him. He was a good boy, but I was not allowed to date. And he was not Korean.

(Our separation was otherwise convenient–R****** was moving, and going to attend junior high school in a different school district).

Later, I would date. And I would marry someone who was not Korean, and who was Jewish. Haha.

Also decades later, R****** told me, “I was new to school that year, too.”

What? I asked.

“Yah, I had just arrived the week before.”

Two new kids. Best friends.

*

I was not allowed to date boys. Whenever a boy called the house, my father would get on the other line, and listen, only to invade a few minutes in and say, “Hang up.” A boy could only call me for a strictly pragmatic purpose: to ask for the homework assignment, to inform me of some official event, and that was it. No chatting.

I snuck out on one date during high school. I liked him–I felt he could see through my bitter/emo facade somehow. My square/academic clique friends were horrified by him (he smoked, he was brash, he said things that no one else dared to say, he put his feet up on his desk when he was in class), but I was not. I felt he was a very good person, underneath his “I go smoke in my car during lunchtime bad boy” facade. (At my high school, smoking in your car at lunchtime was a big indicator that you were “bad.”)

We went to El Torito. I had never had a fajita before. I was so nervous I ate like, ten fajitas. I think I didn’t stop talking. It was, by every definition, a horrible date. I felt a cloud of apology swell inside of me. All I wanted to say was “I’m so sorry, I suck at this.” But I couldn’t “be real,” whatever was inside me that needed to be said, was being stuffed down by fajita after fajita.

I learned on that date that fajitas were delicious.

He took me home. I said, “Please don’t walk me to the door,” knowing I could not be discovered by my parents.

J*** insisted on walking me to the door. I wanted to throw up all the fajitas.

My dad opened the door. J*** stuck out his hand to greet my father. My father slapped his hand away and ushered me inside. “I’m sorry, J***,” I said, the apology finally out, as I waved bye to him.

I just reconnected with J*** on Facebook. He is now a rabbi (he wrote me, self-mockingly, “Can you believe it? I’m a rabbi now!”). And as good a person as ever–and who was gracious when he said he remembered me and said he rather enjoyed that date.

I told my dad that the guy I snuck out with was now a rabbi. I told my dad, what difference would it have made for me to have had a little fun in high school? I would still have been just fine.

“I didn’t know,” said my dad, apologetically.

***

Joining Charlotte’s Web in working through the alphabet with short, memoir-like pieces. It’s called Alphabet: A History.

Previous letters:

• A is for Aub Zam Zam