Dreaming Dog

Perhaps the hardest thing about being on my own again has been this--this absence. There are some logistical explanations--my building, which I've taken to calling my temporary building, as part of some effort to comfort myself, doesn't allow dogs, or I should say dogs larger than an apple. The people who have dogs are so surreptitious about them that you'd think they were hiding narcotics or contraband in their apartments. I know for a fact that a dog, a small dog, lives across the hall; I've heard the chinking of tags every single morning, from my bed, at 6:20 since late August. Obviously s/he is routinely taken out at that time, though I have not ever seen the dog. I have a feeling that the absurdity of that is going to stand in for the story of my year.

But there larger story is one of massive emotional transition. Ned has a new (canine) brother; Mark's with someone new. I've just been trying to get myself back on my feet, as they say. I've been trying to figure out what I want, which takes gigantic attention. I haven't wanted to disrupt, which has both good and not-so-good sides to it. The last time I saw Ned, back before Christmas, he barked in alarm, made an uncharacteristic moan, then peed all over the floor while looking at me with impassive face. That image of him troubled me for weeks, which might have something to do with the fact that i couldn't sleep all Monday night. I was to see Ned the following morning for a three-night trip to Delaware, while Mark and company went to Germany. I was afraid Ned would be angry with me, or worse, that he'd forgotten me, or would be indifferent to me. I never had a doubt that he'd been loved and taken care of, but that didn't stop me from punching a crater into my pillow once an hour, or throwing off covers, or putting on covers, opening the window a crack, and walking to the medicine cabinet for antacids.

Friends had told me that all would be fine. I knew in part that they were probably right, but I was also afraid that it was a little too easy. Dogs are much more complicated and sentient than we ever give them credit for, and if he wanted to resent me, then fine. I guess I don't need to fill in the obvious; I'll let these pictures do the work. I don't want to simplify things or demolish worry in the wake of that long prelude; simplification has a dark, hard, shiny allure. Why is it we want to race to it, especially when we're talking about dogs and their emotional lives? But this day couldn't have been sweeter. 72 degrees, shirt-sleeve weather on the beach. A night outside Asbury Park, a ferry trip across Delaware Bay, two nights in Rehoboth. We're both conked out from breathing in tree pollen. Sun, wind: we're dehydrated, even though we've tried our best to drink water. This morning, I woke to the sounds of robins and song sparrows over the Parkway noise in Tinton Falls. A dreaming dog was pressing hot, sweaty weight into my thigh, and when I heard a stomach rumble, I couldn't tell whether it was his stomach or mine. Then we moved apart.

Spring Break

Here's a little interview I did for Pen Tales last week. I wrote it and sent it in while in a surreal haze post-Chicago. Thus, I'm not quite sure where my advice about hurts comes from. It sounded right at the time, but I've been thinking about it all week, as if those words were phoned in from some outside source.

The houses I talk about in one question? The closest representation I've found of them is at the Rehoboth/Dewey Beach line, where I spent the weekend after Salisbury. I did a little research on their neighborhood. To my amazement, the houses are almost absurdly inexpensive, at least for houses in the pines, within sight and sound of the ocean. It turns out they have a limited life. The land they're built on is leased land--or every homeowner leases his land from some concern. Within--ten years? fifteen? twenty?--the homeowners must cede their land back to the landlord, and the tract will be given over to something else, undoubtedly something much more plush.

Two weeks ago my student Joe put up a story set in Wildwood, New Jersey. We had an interesting discussion about the intensity of the clock, which is the essence of beach town life. You cannot forget time in a beach town. It's always there for you to accede to it, argue with it, worry it, pray to it. Perhaps that's why some of us are drawn to beach towns. About the time the sun hits its apogee, and the renters start shaking out their blankets, we're already sensing the end: the chill, the privacy, the aloneness, the good and bad of it. Pure heat is more precious in such a strategy, and I'd venture to bet that the owners of these loved houses think about time with a tripled intensity. Here are a few pictures of those houses, along with some photos of Assateague wild horses and the Ocean City boardwalk, which might also be titled: how I spent the first weekend of Spring break.






Assateague and Ocean City

Shore

This appears to be the season of shore readings: Chestertown, Maryland; Mays Landing, New Jersey; Salisbury, Maryland. It goes without saying that I'm always happy to read anywhere near/by the ocean. Even better if I get to spend a couple of hours with Kathleen (Kathy) Graber, who's hosting Atlantic Cape Community College's Writing New Jersey Series this spring.




So here's a story. After my reading at Salisbury University Thursday night, a young man comes up to talk to me at the signing table. His face looks oddly familiar--lit, charismatic--as if I've known it somewhere else before. The young man turns out to be my late friend Denise's nephew Mike. (Denise, as some of you know, is central to my memoir The Narrow Door.) Mike had been reading The Burning House in his creative writing workshop and hadn't known till the reading that the Paul who wrote the book was his Aunt Denise's Paul. A strange and startled and sweet moment of mutual recognition. I think there's a picture on the way.

Eye Exam

I tilted my head back as the optometrist squeezed a drop in each eye. There was the usual stinging and burning, but I was pleased with myself for being stoic about it. Even when I looked down at the kleenex I used to dab them. There was a stain the color of lime Gatorade or antifreeze.

What a color! I said to the doctor, who laughed back, and said it was better than red--or blue.

I was sent back to the waiting room. The sentences in front of me started blurring. Over the next twenty minutes there was the increasing sensation of too much light in the room. I knew what was happening: my pupils were expanding. There was something oddly fitting about experiencing these sensations as I read a story by my student Matt, whose central character was falling into a K hole.

By the time I was called back into the office, I knew my eyes must have been totally black to someone looking at me. No other reason for the fluorescent lights to hurt so much. I could barely keep my head up and I felt the unnerving vulnerability I feel when I'm on the beach, in the ocean, with my glasses off.

From Annie Dillard's "Total Eclipse": At once this disk of sky slid over the sun like a lid. The sky snapped over the sun like a lens cover.

In the examining chair, I was thinking about the fact that a good part of my perception was hundreds of miles away, at AWP, in Chicago, though AWP had been over for two days. When I got overwhelmed by the social maw of it, I stood somewhere central, pulled out my phone, and stared down at its face, as if what was coming in was of great importance. The borders of that face helped to keep me contained. That way I could still be around people, still hear the chuff of shoes against carpet, voices joyful and hoarse from talking too much, and get my privacy back, if just for three minutes. Then I'd feel happy to see someone I knew again. The face of the phone got me through AWP.

I didn't occur to me that pupil dilation was not the best way to follow all that porosity. When the doctor shone a vertical beam of sun against my retina, I flinched, as if someone had poked me, in the side, on a dark street.

I walked out onto the sidewalk with my -8.25 prescription in my hand. At least the doctor was cheerful about it. I can't say how many doctors I've seen over the years, well meaning doctors, but unnerving too--grave in their performance about the intensity of my prescription, as if I might not have a sense that seeing is hard for me. The light struck the pavement, my head, the back of my eye. I pulled off my glasses, pulled on my sunglasses (non prescription) and did my best to walk home. I could certainly follow the sidewalk, especially if it was on the shadow side of the street. I was probably slouching. It was a relief actually not to know too many people in my temporary neighborhood; I didn't have to feel strange about not saying hello to the shapes aiming toward me.

I remembered saying "sorry" several times in the waiting room. Odd, as I remember being annoyed with one panelist at AWP who kept saying sorry at the smallest things, things she didn't have to be sorry for. Sorry, it occurred to me now, had something to do with vulnerability, physical or emotional.

Just another way to say: I'm scared.

When I looked up, I'd walked all the way to Broad Street, overshooting my street by two blocks.

When I got home, I put my old contacts back in. They didn't feel so good. The left dragged across my dry cornea as I blinked. When I took them out to rinse them off, the antifreeze color had seeped into my lenses. I'm sure you would have heard someone curse if you happened to be walking down the hall of my floor at that minute.

By night, there was more blue in my eye, less black. I'd spent the better part of the day--over eight hours--reading three student manuscripts, and I was exhausted and queasy from the work of sight. It was nine o'clock and I was ready for bed. Who knew how hard it was to let light in?

Seaside Room

I'm still simultaneously shredded and friendlier than usual, which is another way of saying that a good part of me is still at AWP, even though I've been back home for over 24 hours. Here's the last passage of the text I read at the Social Media panel with Matt Bell, Kim Addonizio, and others on Saturday morning. And a few photos, which can't even begin to capture the vastness of three days with 9.000+ writers. A Times Square for writers.

from the piece "Mystery Beast"

9) Sometimes it seems as if keeping a blog is the equivalent of playing in a seaside hotel, north of Blackpool, south of Morecambe. It is late August, mysteriously hot in the room. There’s a hint of mildew coming off the pillow case, and the rooms are to be shut down for good in a matter of weeks. Winter is coming. Wind off the Irish Sea, and ice. Why would I think such a thing? I think there’s a pretty good reason why Tumblr holds such appeal. The template is stylish, simple; the text is always subordinate to image. It makes a strong visual impression, especially if you’re coming to it through Twitter, then heading back out again. It signs messages to you with the word “love.” To like a post, you press the heart. There’s so little text. It feels wrong to write more than the shortest paragraph, as if by keeping it short one is resisting all that was ever wrong with blogs: the self-indulgence, the self-regard. But Tumblr is also doomed, because just as we’re settling in, Tumblrites will be rolling on to the next best thing. (Pinterest?) Elegy is the nature of the internet, though we might not be able to see that yet.

Until the next thing comes around, I think I’ll stay in my seaside room. I’m not the type who likes to sprawl so much, but sometimes you need to know you can throw your arms out, and take up the whole bed if you have to.

Cate Marvin in the Hilton lobby

Erin Belieu singing "Superstar" at the VIDA Karaoke benefit at Tamarind

The empty lobby of the Hilton Chicago at 8:30 Saturday morning

Audience gathering for the social media panel

The people at ASU's Superstition Review took this shot of me

Chicago Snowflake in Transit. From the platform of the Red Line at Belmont, 5:35 AM Sunday morning, on the way back to the airport

AWP (Or: Big Pink)

AWP is approaching, and for some odd reason, I'm excited about going to Chicago on Wednesday. The truth is my last two AWPs have been wonderful, in spite of the sickening, social overload. I am need of seeing the people I love. I have probably said yes to too much--a book signing for The Burning House on Friday, a panel on Saturday, a group reading on Saturday. And two offsite events: a group reading on Thursday night at six, and the VIDA benefit on Friday at ten PM. Someone you know might be singing sometime after 10 AM. By which I mean in front of the crowd. Be forewarned.

I ended up writing out my introduction to the VCCA Anniversary event, where I'm reading a poem by Melissa Stein, and two short pieces of mine. I thought I'd give you a preview. The introduction at least, which was delight to write.

***

Fence on the left, fence on the right. Worn dirt road down the middle. Creature of black with white patches. Curious, cautious. Lumber to two-legger in green. Is that grass? Wearing a jacket of grass? Hand reaches out to rub the head, oh so good to have the head rubbed. Good, good, so much good behind the ears. Tongue plunges, the big pink, and drags up buttons to collar. Two-legger laughs, pulls back, goes back in again. Need rub: please. Tongue plunges once more, wiping down the jacket of grass, but it isn't grass, no, not the crisp bitey sweet. Turns, storming the field with a snort, mashing the grass to join the others.

Two-legger is me, obviously. And that is my first encounter with the cows of the VCCA. Animals and writing: who knew that that's where it would start for me? I did not know back then that animals were the missing thing in my life, and I might not have recognized that had it not been for the VCCA, which put cows right in the center of all that making.

The Fine Delight

I'm honored to be featured in this excerpt from Nick Ripatrazone's forthcoming book of criticism, The Fine Delight, which will be out a year from now. It looks like it's going to be an absorbing, spacious read, "everything from William Gass to Flannery O'Connor" represented, as Nick says.

And below, three photos from my stay at the Delaware shore last weekend. You've seen versions of these shots before--I took them at Cape Henlopen State Park and Gordons Pond, just north of Rehoboth--but I've been fooling around with the filters on Instagram, which seem to have their own private mind.