Old Democrats, James Wright, and Blossoming
So much has happened that I hardly know where to begin.
I have a new home! It has been a blessing in more ways than I can count. First, purchasing it was an accomplishment, one I can’t pretend didn’t matter. For most of my 20s, I refused to take the responsibility of managing my money seriously, and I continue to pay for it now in my mid-30s. The fact that I was able to purchase a home, and that I am now completely in control of how I spend my money, has given me a new lease on life and put the end of my credit card and student loan debt in sight.
More importantly, the weeks I spent cleaning, pulling out carpet, and painting, and the move itself, reminded me of how lucky I am. I was surrounded by friends at every moment, all of whom helped for countless hours. Their labor was, of course, important, but so was their company. It is never easy to end a relationship, to begin again, and I had all kinds of fears about what such a change would mean in our small town, but I have realized in the past month that I had no reason to worry.
Right after the move, my first cousin who raised me after my mother’s death came to visit for a week; she helped me put the finishing touches on the house and cooked all of those who had helped a big Greek meal. It was phenomenal. I felt so touched that night by everyone’s presence, by the food and wine, by the good conversation, the bright oranges and pinks and yellows and blues and greens in my new house.
Just after the move, I participated as always in the Relay for Life here in town, the fundraiser for cancer. It was incredibly successful. For the first time, I took an overnight shift and walked from 3 a.m. until the event ended at 7. There was a beautiful fingernail-moon in the sky, and I watched the sun rise over the prairie as I circled the park, following a path of luminaries. Every so often, I’d spot a luminary I’d purchased, the Greek name seeming to stand out among all the Swedish and Norwegian names, not fitting. But from far away, every name was equally lit, every light equally necessary on that path of mourning and of hope. I felt as if I belonged, and I felt grateful—grateful for the chance to remember my loved ones who died of cancer, grateful for friends and family members who have survived, grateful for the night, the moon’s light, my new life that was still rooted in the old.
Since then, I’ve been blessed with the chance to teach a new class of students in Gateway program, a program for entering students of color. The students have renewed my belief that I’m working the right job in the right place, at least for now. Campus politics and funding cuts were getting me down to the point that I started to wonder if I had been crazy to buy a house, if I shouldn’t have instead gone immediately on the job market and fled at the first offer, if I should be in academia at all. Teaching this new group has reminded me that when I have students who want to learn, I can be a good teacher no matter where I am. We are having thoughtful, serious conversations about how our lives intersect with the stories of writers like Richard Rodriguez and Sherman Alexie and Randall Kenan and Gish Jen. Each time I teach writers like these, I am reminded of how breathtaking and life-changing good writing can be.
I got rid of my T.V., and that has been the biggest blessing of all. At first I found it difficult to know what to do after a day of work when I didn’t have a social event planned and felt vaguely tired. But then I remembered how much I used to love to read, and that love is coming back—I am anxious now to get back to whatever book I’m discovering or re-discovering.
I have also been madly working on a novel I thought I would never finish. Suddenly, the trip I made to Greece last year to finish the research I knew I needed to complete a sound revision has returned in vivid detail. I am on a roll. Sometimes I worry that my sudden energy won’t last. I have dark days when I also wonder why I’m bothering—I’m 35 and nothing I’ve written has ever been published with the exception of 15 or so poems, most of them in journals I'm convinced only other poets read, probably less than 1 percent of the submissions I’ve made the last six years. But then I get back to the page, and I am so happy while I’m typing, re-reading notes, discovering my characters’ next actions.
There has also been a great deal of grief the last few weeks. Several friends have left town for good, including my best friends. That goodbye was especially heart-wrenching for everyone who loved them, and for them, even though they’d chosen to move on to better jobs in a place they’d rather live. I have talked to them twice since the move and exchanged countless e-mails; I feel relieved at how easily we seem to be managing to stay friends. Still, it's hard not to have them nearby.
On the day they left, a young woman I knew, thought not well, committed suicide, and her death affected almost everyone in our small town in some way. Friends poured into town from all over the country for the funeral, and several stopped by to say hello, including some alums who were close to my partner and me as a couple and were clearly saddened by seeing us separately on this trip. It is hard to know what to say about this tragedy, how to make sense of it, or what I can do besides offer up prayers for everyone who is mourning.
And today, I learned that an old Democrat of whom I have been particularly fond since I arrived in Morris six years ago has passed away. I rarely saw him except during the summer and early fall of the major election years, when we both did what we could to support the party’s candidates by attending salad suppers and caucuses and regional fairs. I saw him twice in the last month (it's an election year, after all!). The first time was at the hardware store when I was in the middle of painting my new place. He greeted me warmly and commented on the shirt I was wearing, a Clinton/Gore shirt from the first time they ran. It is, of course, a very old shirt, and at some point I must have decided to sacrifice it; now, the shirt tells the story of paint colors from two different houses I’ve lived in as well as grass stains and dirt from at least two gardens.
He asked me why I’d ever sacrifice a shirt like that to the wear and tear of household tasks. He grinned as he asked me, adding, “Someday that old thing could be worth something, after all.” Then he asked if I’d given my $50 to the party this year and what I thought of the new local candidates (he of course knew more about them than I did). He said he hoped to see me at Prairie Pioneer Days, the annual town fair in the park in the center of town, now located practically in my front yard.
He was, of course, at the DFL booth at Prairie Pioneer Days, and we talked some more during my two hour shift. He’d brought an old license plate that said “Vote Roosevelt—Peace and Prosperity.” He informed me that he’d voted twice for Roosevelt. It wasn’t the first time he told me that, but it turned out that it would be the last. I watched him work the crowd, trying to talk everybody from the American Legion guys to the random vendors into giving the party some money, flirting with the old women sitting at the quilt booths. It was hard to believe how old he was—he was skinny, and his face was covered in deep, wide wrinkles, but his eyes were alert, and he always walked quickly and with purpose.
As I was leaving my shift, he made a joke about how I couldn’t take the heat (it was over 90, which is hot for Minnesota) and asked whether he’d see me at the booth at the County Fair. “Of course,” I said. It turns out I’ll be there, but he won’t.
I want to write a poem called “In Praise of Old Democrats,” the kind of poem someone like James Wright might have written. I was generally annoyed at having to read the dead white guys when I was in school, but Wright I loved. He had a nostalgia for Ohio that I shared, and even though it really does sometimes read as nothing but pure nostalgia, I couldn’t help but open my heart to the simple, stark imagery in his work.
Today, after a week of 100 plus degree heat, we got a good shower. I was relieved for the garden and hopeful that I could turn off my air conditioning, which I never thought I’d use. I stepped outside when it had faded to a sprinkle just to check the temperature. Still hot, though the air seemed lighter. Three of my daylilies were in full bloom—I hadn’t noticed them earlier. But more spectacularly, there was a rainbow, I swear, that reached across the park in a perfect, giant arc. Its highest point hovered directly over the spot where I’d last seen my old Democratic friend, where the DFL booth had been with all of its hopeful if not somewhat bewildered volunteers.
God is showing off, I said out loud, and just as the words left my mouth, an acquaintance turned the corner, walking with her husband and new baby. I don’t know her well, but she and I share mother-loss from cancer (her mother died the year I arrived in Morris) and a connection to this place, though I came as a stranger six years ago and, in the last ten years, she has left and returned and left again. She’s visiting her father now for the first time with her new son.
“We had to get out of my dad’s house,” she said, “to see if the heat had broken.”
“It has,” I said gleefully. And then I pointed to the sky. “Did you see?”
She nodded. I peeked into the carriage and saw that her son was looking up and smiling.
As they walked on, I stood for awhile, admiring the rainbow until it faded completely from sight. In the meantime, a group of kids came out to play in the park, loud and happy to experience the cooler, lighter air. “Ready or not,” one of them shouted. A car full of teenagers circled the block three times, laughing, apparently, at my insistence on watching the rainbow until it was gone (OK, so I was wearing a long nightshirt and boxer shorts and no shoes, but who cares). I should have been annoyed, but for some reason, as they circled the third time and the rainbow began to fade, three lines from James Wright’s poem “Blessing” popped into my head:
Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom.
I said them out loud to myself once, twice, three times. I saw the young family turning back toward home. The sky grew dark. My cat meowed loudly, indignant that I hadn’t let her out. I heard a mother calling one of the kids back home.
I pulled my Collected Poems of James Wright off my shelf as soon as it the darkness enveloped even the western side of town. I opened randomly to this poem, with which I’m clearly supposed to close this entry (with which I should, in truth, probably replace this entry altogether):
Trying To Pray, by James Wright
This time, I have left my body behind me, crying
In its dark thorns.
Still,
There are good things in this world.
It is dusk.
It is the good darkness
Of women's hands that touch loaves.
The spirit of a tree begins to move.
I touch leaves.
I close my eyes and think of water.
I have a new home! It has been a blessing in more ways than I can count. First, purchasing it was an accomplishment, one I can’t pretend didn’t matter. For most of my 20s, I refused to take the responsibility of managing my money seriously, and I continue to pay for it now in my mid-30s. The fact that I was able to purchase a home, and that I am now completely in control of how I spend my money, has given me a new lease on life and put the end of my credit card and student loan debt in sight.
More importantly, the weeks I spent cleaning, pulling out carpet, and painting, and the move itself, reminded me of how lucky I am. I was surrounded by friends at every moment, all of whom helped for countless hours. Their labor was, of course, important, but so was their company. It is never easy to end a relationship, to begin again, and I had all kinds of fears about what such a change would mean in our small town, but I have realized in the past month that I had no reason to worry.
Right after the move, my first cousin who raised me after my mother’s death came to visit for a week; she helped me put the finishing touches on the house and cooked all of those who had helped a big Greek meal. It was phenomenal. I felt so touched that night by everyone’s presence, by the food and wine, by the good conversation, the bright oranges and pinks and yellows and blues and greens in my new house.
Just after the move, I participated as always in the Relay for Life here in town, the fundraiser for cancer. It was incredibly successful. For the first time, I took an overnight shift and walked from 3 a.m. until the event ended at 7. There was a beautiful fingernail-moon in the sky, and I watched the sun rise over the prairie as I circled the park, following a path of luminaries. Every so often, I’d spot a luminary I’d purchased, the Greek name seeming to stand out among all the Swedish and Norwegian names, not fitting. But from far away, every name was equally lit, every light equally necessary on that path of mourning and of hope. I felt as if I belonged, and I felt grateful—grateful for the chance to remember my loved ones who died of cancer, grateful for friends and family members who have survived, grateful for the night, the moon’s light, my new life that was still rooted in the old.
Since then, I’ve been blessed with the chance to teach a new class of students in Gateway program, a program for entering students of color. The students have renewed my belief that I’m working the right job in the right place, at least for now. Campus politics and funding cuts were getting me down to the point that I started to wonder if I had been crazy to buy a house, if I shouldn’t have instead gone immediately on the job market and fled at the first offer, if I should be in academia at all. Teaching this new group has reminded me that when I have students who want to learn, I can be a good teacher no matter where I am. We are having thoughtful, serious conversations about how our lives intersect with the stories of writers like Richard Rodriguez and Sherman Alexie and Randall Kenan and Gish Jen. Each time I teach writers like these, I am reminded of how breathtaking and life-changing good writing can be.
I got rid of my T.V., and that has been the biggest blessing of all. At first I found it difficult to know what to do after a day of work when I didn’t have a social event planned and felt vaguely tired. But then I remembered how much I used to love to read, and that love is coming back—I am anxious now to get back to whatever book I’m discovering or re-discovering.
I have also been madly working on a novel I thought I would never finish. Suddenly, the trip I made to Greece last year to finish the research I knew I needed to complete a sound revision has returned in vivid detail. I am on a roll. Sometimes I worry that my sudden energy won’t last. I have dark days when I also wonder why I’m bothering—I’m 35 and nothing I’ve written has ever been published with the exception of 15 or so poems, most of them in journals I'm convinced only other poets read, probably less than 1 percent of the submissions I’ve made the last six years. But then I get back to the page, and I am so happy while I’m typing, re-reading notes, discovering my characters’ next actions.
There has also been a great deal of grief the last few weeks. Several friends have left town for good, including my best friends. That goodbye was especially heart-wrenching for everyone who loved them, and for them, even though they’d chosen to move on to better jobs in a place they’d rather live. I have talked to them twice since the move and exchanged countless e-mails; I feel relieved at how easily we seem to be managing to stay friends. Still, it's hard not to have them nearby.
On the day they left, a young woman I knew, thought not well, committed suicide, and her death affected almost everyone in our small town in some way. Friends poured into town from all over the country for the funeral, and several stopped by to say hello, including some alums who were close to my partner and me as a couple and were clearly saddened by seeing us separately on this trip. It is hard to know what to say about this tragedy, how to make sense of it, or what I can do besides offer up prayers for everyone who is mourning.
And today, I learned that an old Democrat of whom I have been particularly fond since I arrived in Morris six years ago has passed away. I rarely saw him except during the summer and early fall of the major election years, when we both did what we could to support the party’s candidates by attending salad suppers and caucuses and regional fairs. I saw him twice in the last month (it's an election year, after all!). The first time was at the hardware store when I was in the middle of painting my new place. He greeted me warmly and commented on the shirt I was wearing, a Clinton/Gore shirt from the first time they ran. It is, of course, a very old shirt, and at some point I must have decided to sacrifice it; now, the shirt tells the story of paint colors from two different houses I’ve lived in as well as grass stains and dirt from at least two gardens.
He asked me why I’d ever sacrifice a shirt like that to the wear and tear of household tasks. He grinned as he asked me, adding, “Someday that old thing could be worth something, after all.” Then he asked if I’d given my $50 to the party this year and what I thought of the new local candidates (he of course knew more about them than I did). He said he hoped to see me at Prairie Pioneer Days, the annual town fair in the park in the center of town, now located practically in my front yard.
He was, of course, at the DFL booth at Prairie Pioneer Days, and we talked some more during my two hour shift. He’d brought an old license plate that said “Vote Roosevelt—Peace and Prosperity.” He informed me that he’d voted twice for Roosevelt. It wasn’t the first time he told me that, but it turned out that it would be the last. I watched him work the crowd, trying to talk everybody from the American Legion guys to the random vendors into giving the party some money, flirting with the old women sitting at the quilt booths. It was hard to believe how old he was—he was skinny, and his face was covered in deep, wide wrinkles, but his eyes were alert, and he always walked quickly and with purpose.
As I was leaving my shift, he made a joke about how I couldn’t take the heat (it was over 90, which is hot for Minnesota) and asked whether he’d see me at the booth at the County Fair. “Of course,” I said. It turns out I’ll be there, but he won’t.
I want to write a poem called “In Praise of Old Democrats,” the kind of poem someone like James Wright might have written. I was generally annoyed at having to read the dead white guys when I was in school, but Wright I loved. He had a nostalgia for Ohio that I shared, and even though it really does sometimes read as nothing but pure nostalgia, I couldn’t help but open my heart to the simple, stark imagery in his work.
Today, after a week of 100 plus degree heat, we got a good shower. I was relieved for the garden and hopeful that I could turn off my air conditioning, which I never thought I’d use. I stepped outside when it had faded to a sprinkle just to check the temperature. Still hot, though the air seemed lighter. Three of my daylilies were in full bloom—I hadn’t noticed them earlier. But more spectacularly, there was a rainbow, I swear, that reached across the park in a perfect, giant arc. Its highest point hovered directly over the spot where I’d last seen my old Democratic friend, where the DFL booth had been with all of its hopeful if not somewhat bewildered volunteers.
God is showing off, I said out loud, and just as the words left my mouth, an acquaintance turned the corner, walking with her husband and new baby. I don’t know her well, but she and I share mother-loss from cancer (her mother died the year I arrived in Morris) and a connection to this place, though I came as a stranger six years ago and, in the last ten years, she has left and returned and left again. She’s visiting her father now for the first time with her new son.
“We had to get out of my dad’s house,” she said, “to see if the heat had broken.”
“It has,” I said gleefully. And then I pointed to the sky. “Did you see?”
She nodded. I peeked into the carriage and saw that her son was looking up and smiling.
As they walked on, I stood for awhile, admiring the rainbow until it faded completely from sight. In the meantime, a group of kids came out to play in the park, loud and happy to experience the cooler, lighter air. “Ready or not,” one of them shouted. A car full of teenagers circled the block three times, laughing, apparently, at my insistence on watching the rainbow until it was gone (OK, so I was wearing a long nightshirt and boxer shorts and no shoes, but who cares). I should have been annoyed, but for some reason, as they circled the third time and the rainbow began to fade, three lines from James Wright’s poem “Blessing” popped into my head:
Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom.
I said them out loud to myself once, twice, three times. I saw the young family turning back toward home. The sky grew dark. My cat meowed loudly, indignant that I hadn’t let her out. I heard a mother calling one of the kids back home.
I pulled my Collected Poems of James Wright off my shelf as soon as it the darkness enveloped even the western side of town. I opened randomly to this poem, with which I’m clearly supposed to close this entry (with which I should, in truth, probably replace this entry altogether):
Trying To Pray, by James Wright
This time, I have left my body behind me, crying
In its dark thorns.
Still,
There are good things in this world.
It is dusk.
It is the good darkness
Of women's hands that touch loaves.
The spirit of a tree begins to move.
I touch leaves.
I close my eyes and think of water.
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