Home Again, Home Again

Goodbye to All That . . .

In Western New York, seasons do not arrive or depart according to a calendar date. You learn not to expect spring on March 21, but weeks later, with the appearance of the first daffodil or forsythia buds. On the upside, summer usually makes an appearance long before June 21 while the downside is the possibility of snow on Halloween. In fact, that’s happened three times in the 18 years I’ve lived here.

My summer this year started on May 1, when I opened a blank page on my computer and typed “Part II.” A couple hundred pages later, I finished the first draft of a novel, as well as a dozen or so first drafts of poems I may or may not renovate. Thanks to a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, I didn’t have to be a Kelly Girl or part-time professor. I got to be a writer for four straight months and I’ve loved every second of it.

While we’re still more than three weeks from the first day of fall on the calendar, there are signs that autumn is already here: last weekend’s long line of cars in front of the dorms at the University of Rochester, for example. The ripe beefsteak tomato on my fire escape garden. The temperature that feels more football than baseball The perceptible difference in the light at the end of the day—no longer the white heat of summer, but the gold of autumn.

Damn. I’m not ready for this summer to end.

Mad Dash Home

My residency in Nebraska City ended on August 7 and rather than going south to visit a friend of long-standing in Illinois, I decided to drive to my dad’s house—what my mother used to call a “mad dash home.” I don’t know exactly what constitutes an MDH in time and/or distance, but it pretty much means driving a very long way in one day to get HOME. Which is what I did. After dropping a fellow resident off at the Omaha airport, I pointed my car east on Interstate 80 and drove the 700-hundred odd miles from Nebraska to Michigan. Except for a driving rain that followed me through Iowa and western Illinois, a massive traffic jam west of Joliet, and the general yuck around Chicago, it was just fine.

Admittedly, a little mad, though. I’m a driving fool.

A Trip Through Life

The last day of my residency, I went Dinty Moore's for lunch. DM’s is a tiny little Nebraska City institution consisting of an old oak bar, two fans that would probably do very well on “Antiques Roadshow,” and the best shredded beef sandwiches I’ve ever tasted. Now I don’t do a lot of beef, but when in Rome, you must eat beef with the Romans. Or something . . . .

Anyhow, the waitress/bartender. Linda, asked me where I was from and when I told her I lived in Western New York, she said she’d never been there, but she’d like to visit some day because she’d heard the Finger Lakes were beautiful. “But you know,” she said, “I think every place has its own beauty. You just have to be able to see it.”

I started writing this as a travel blog about my trip to and from Nebraska. And so, since life is a trip, I’ll keep on writing about the places it takes me. Try to see the beauty that’s there.

Downs and Ups, and Sign, Signs, Everywhere There's Signs

Downs and Ups and Are

 We There Yet?

In my family, the words "remember the time when . . . " will usually spin off into a story about something that happened when we were young, often on one of our yearly family vacations. Not long ago, my father was reminiscing about the trip we took to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Now, it's important to add here that the Upper Peninsula is Michigan in name only. I think I heard once that if Car 1 started driving south from the Michigan/Ohio line at exactly the same time that Car 2 headed north from the same point, Car 1 would arrive in Atlanta, Georgia, long before Car 2 hit the northernmost tip of the Upper Peninsula at Copper Harbor. 

This may be an urban myth and/or geographically incorrect, but it illustrates the point nicely that Copper Harbor is UP THERE and FAR AWAY. And to four kids under the age of nine, driving the length of the UP seemed like forever, probably even longer to my poor parents. Upon arriving late at the small motel/restaurant where we were staying in Copper Harbor, my dad asked the owner whether it would be possible to order peanut butter sandwiches for the kids and two cold martinis for the adults. "I think I can do that," she said.

I don't remember, but I'm pretty sure we asked the question "Are we there yet?" a time or two during the drive that day, a question I've asked myself a lot recently as I sat down to write. So I'm happy to report that on Monday, August 3, at approximately 3:13 p.m. Central Daylight Savings Time, I arrived at the end of the first draft of my novel: 416 pages in all. 

I like to tell my students that writing is a lot of downs and ups: You get it down, then you fix it up. I have a lot of fixing up to do, but for now, I'm going to enjoy the moment. And maybe celebrate later with a glass of Champagne.

Signs, Signs . . . . 

I had to include this photo of last month's sign in front of the First Baptist Church.  

About that Champagne  . . . 

I searched this town for a glass or a split of Champagne (i.e., anything bubbly and fortified). No glasses, only bottles. So the toast is on hold.

 

A Winery in Nebraska, Poetic Closure, and Are We There Yet?

A Winery in Nebraska

Since it's been nearly a week since I'd driven more than three miles at a time, a Saturday road trip was in order. After consulting my map and several pamphlets on local attractions, I pointed my car south and headed down Highway 75 toward Brownville, Nebraska. It's a tiny town shouldering the Missouri River, but one with a big and rich history. As with most river towns here, Lewis and Clark figure prominently in that history, but more recently, the town has become a haven for art galleries and bookstores. They're located along the town's main street in old, old brick and frame buildings. Being a bookstore addict, I visited several and came away with a now out-of-print poetry book, Collecting for the Wichita Beacon, by William Kloefkorn, a terrific Nebraska poet.

I took my new book down the road to the Whiskey Run Creek Winery. I bought a glass of chardonel and took it outside to the deck where I read poetry, listened to the waterfall and watched a cardinal tangle with a worm. The winery's main building is a 100-year-old barn that was moved 18 miles to its present location in 2001. Take a moment and click on the link above to read the entire history and view pictures of the move.

Driving back, I crossed the river into Missouri and took Interstate 29 into Iowa and then west on Highway 2 into Nebraska. Three states in thirty minutes . . . 

Poetic Closure

When does a poem end? And how will it end? In fire or in ice . . . oh, wait, that's the world.  But back to those questions. If I had a nickel for every time I've heard "this poem isn't finished yet," I could pay my Sprint bill for the next year. That's a lot of nickels. And that's why, from 9-9:50 on Thursday morning, I sat in with a couple dozen MFA students from Nebraska-Omaha and listened to Bill Trowbridge's lecture on poetic closure, aptly entitled "Are We There Yet?" He started by relating the story of how, when he was a kid, his father hated that question. Hated it. So much so that on one family trip, when they were within one hundred miles of the Grand Canyon and The Question was posed yet again, the dad turned the car around and drove all the way back to Omaha. 

While this isn't an option for concluding most poems, Trowbridge did discuss ways in which poets could end poems: the lid-snapping closure, anti-closure, the snaps-shut-but-still-surprising closure. He distributed handouts with great examples and included one of my favorite all-time endings, the one to James Wright's "Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy's Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota." Check it out for yourself and see if that ending doesn't surprise you just a bit.

Are We There Yet?

Almost! I'm figuring the first draft will be complete by Tuesday. I may even type up one or two of the wanna-be poems currently soiling my notebook.