Yankee in a Red State

The ramblings of an expatriate New Yorker in the South ~ formerly known as The Kudzu Kronikles ~

Sweet Sixteen

Sixteen years ago, at 3:50 in the morning, doctors extracted from my body a sublime infant who gazed at me through old eyes, as if he possessed all the wisdom of the world.  Born by caesarean section, my sweet son was quiet but alert, his APGAR scores were within normal parameters, and other than a slight case of jaundice and a strep infection (caught, they say, from streptococci that are harbored in the birth canal), this child who refused to come into the world normally was perfect.
The world into which he was born was far from perfect and I did my best to raise him in an atmosphere that was tinged with dis-ease and conflict.  Daddy was more like a troublesome sibling, with the post traumatic stress one gets from slogging around the jungles of Vietnam.  By the time he was eight years old, the child had spent more time caring for the father than the father had spent caring for the son.  This wasn't supposed to happen until father's old age and son's adulthood but my son took on the responsibility with compassion and while his father and I were legally separated when my son was two years old, I always made certain that the two of them spent as much time together as was possible and prudent.
My son, over the past sixteen years, has lived in the city, on top of a mountain, in the grassy countryside of his home state, and in the humid reaches of a strange place called Florida.  He has adventured with me on my academic treks.  He has seen a lot of things kids his own age do not get to see -- some good, some bad.  He has historically had bad luck on his birthdays; asthma attacks and hospitalization, the destruction of the World Trade Center (although it wasn't ON his birthday he claims that 9/11 ruined his 9/19 fun), hurricanes, and lean times.  He has been through kindergarten twice because he is a September baby and probably not quite ready the first time around.
I'm scratching the surface here, mainly to get to the point where I can say that my son John has become a funny, compassionate, caring, brilliant, talented child.  I am so proud I could burst.  Today he tells me that he is going to pass on playing football this season "because I need to focus more on academics."
Last night I was sitting in the other room while he played on the computer here, chatting with his friends on MySpace and reading about bass players (he is developing quite a talent for the instrument).  Instead of the usual angst-filled music from the neo-neo thrash punk bands he usually prefers, I could hear the strains of ... jazz!  I had to ask him what he was listening to and he said "Weather Report" and colored slightly, as if I had caught him doing a naughty thing, but I just stood and stared for a moment, then said "you never cease to amaze me."
This is the absolute joy he brings me.  It comes from those moments when I know he will be ok in this world.  He eschews drugs and cigarettes and booze for music and paintball.  He proudly proclaims that he is "straight-edge," meaning that he has vowed to never touch the bad stuff and I believe him.  Yes, I check on his MySpace page, I read his friends' comments.  My readers would be a bit shocked to see the language but in this day, the words they use are mere jest; the words of a generation that has developed a dark sense of humor.  Yet all the signposts indicate that he is ok.  His grades are good, he isn't cutting himself or wearing dark makeup and a wardrobe from Goth-oriented Hot Topic.  He has his own style, he is popular with the ladies, and he is my best friend next to his stepfather.
I know he is destined for great things.
So I offer you this, from a woman who did not want children but found herself having one anyway.  There was love in the making and there was love that received him into this world and love that raised him.  He is better than my thesis and all my worldly possessions.  He is my masterpiece.  I am humbled before him sometimes.  He is my angel.  

posted by: willothwisp at 12:54 | link | comments (4) |
family and friends

Writers Write

Consider writing to be one of the tools of your trade.  If one wishes to be accomplished in what one does in life, one must develop good writing skills.  With these skills one can

Share information clearly (the sciences, arts and letters, business).

Persuade effectively.

  Argue with confidence.

Feel comfortable speaking before peers and strangers.

Even if one goes on to become a mad scientist or the dictator of a small, third-world country, one will need the tools of a good writer if one is going to stay at the top of one’s game.

James Joyce knew he wanted to be a writer.  How can we tell this?  Because he read voraciously as a child, he won essay contests with his writing and he didn’t spend a few years trying to find himself while he became a writer – he worked at it actively.  He even worked with words as a teacher of English when he emigrated from Dublin to Trieste.  Otherwise, he socialized and wrote.  All the time.  In the movie, “Throw Momma From The Train,” Billy Crystal plays a writing instructor whose student, Owen (Danny DiVito), is a fledgling writer.  He reminds his students constantly that “writers write.”  When one asks a successful writer for advice on how to go about being a writer, one can expect the same advice, which hovers somewhere between the now-patented Nike “just do it” come-on and a stern command to quit the bullshit.

I have volumes of spiral-bound notebooks, all containing half-hearted attempts at journals, fits and starts of fiction, fragments of poetry, and a patchwork of drawings and gin game scores.  My journals look like the ramblings of one suffering from severe ADD.  In fact, that description is closer to the truth than I would like to let on.  But my head is filled with fantasies and plots, all banging into each other, hobnobbing with the academic work I should be concentrating on as well as incredible first and last lines of poems.  I know they’re good.  People have always told me so.  And yet, I do not have the discipline that Joyce had.  I must not have the passion to sit and write all day.  I certainly do not have the pocketbook to ply my craft as a means toward a living and I do not have a loving, yet slightly guilt-tripped brother who is willing to pay my bills when I come up short.  On the positive side, I do not have a bad drinking habit. 

There is no escaping it.  Writing has to have it’s time and place.  One must set aside undisturbed chunks of the day if one is going to give writing the attention it deserves. As I wind down from my scholar’s schedule and distractions, I am finding more time to devote to playing with words for my own amusement.  At the very least, I can prove to my students that I write with more fluidity and grace than I speak, what with mental lapses that make me forget what word I want to use and all.  Some of us do better behind a screen.  I know I can at least hold a class’s attention (for the most part) and make them laugh.  But for sheer inspiration, I need to let them see my blogs, my poetry, my own scholarly work, for that’s where I shine.

posted by: willothwisp at 20:25 | link | comments |
writers craft

Wee Hours

I'm gathering my thoughts before I head to school for another day of revealing my academic secrets of success with the sixy-or-so freshmen that I share my mornings with.  Today, however, they seem to be escaping the net and swimming away to hide in the plant life that grows somewhere in the nether reaches of my brain.

Some days I know exactly what I'm going to do.  I usually map out the lecture before I go in and today is no different but I have the feeling today will be one of those "diverge from the script" days.  One of those "fuckit" days when I let the class lead the discussion.  We have some housekeeping to do, but I think we'll brainstorm today.  I'll let the wee ones do the thinking for once.  Four weeks into the semester they *should* have an idea of what they are doing.

I will sit and drink my Costco coffee and let the thoughts swim free.  I will not fish today.

posted by: willothwisp at 11:47 | link | comments (1) |

Back Again

Lordy, where DOES the time go? 

I was teaching summer school and then *WHAM* I had to start planning for fall.  It has been a whirlwind of activity here in the old brain and I have hardly had one moment to sit and think and compose.  The novel is sitting patiently, waiting for me to resume it, I have 3 poems that need serious revisions and, to top it all off, I am sitting in on a class about Joyce and Beckett and Modernism.

By the way.  I will sell my Riverside Chaucer for a downpayment on the Centenary Editions of Beckett's complete works.

It is interesting not being a student any longer.  Well, I mean, a tuition-paying, assignment-completing student.  I can still sit in a classroom and listen to the ideas of the graduate students.  I also get to continue learning from my esteemed thesis director.  Yes, yes, one would think that I am a glutton for punishment but as I explained to the students who are not familiar with her teaching style, she made me a better writer and a better teacher.  I learned from every mistake I made on that thesis and now I have to put those good habits into practice.

Which brings me back here.  I need to practice what I preach and if I want my students to be good writers and do their blogs, so must I.  I need to get the gears oiled and the fingers limbered up and mornings when I am not teaching seem to be the best times.  Oh, if each of my students had a computer!  I would make it mandatory to blog for fifteen minutes every class just to get them in the right frame of mind. 

One observation:  Florida students SEEM to be getting smarter.  Freshmen five years ago were seriously deficient in their reading and writing skills.  There is a glimmer of hope.  I hear them speak of reading Chaucer and Shakespeare and Beowulf in high school and my heart leaps for joy.  I still insist that one cannot be a good writer if one is poorly-read.  Yes, the language of the past centuries is difficult to muddle through, but they get an idea of how English has mutated from old Beowulf to Mary Higgins Clark (or some such tripe that finds its way to the paperback stand).  Hopefully they will choose more substantial fare to read and if I continue my Better Readers Make Better Writers crusade, we can forget all this animosity between rhetoricians and literaturists. (I just made that word up.) ( Hey, Shakespeare also made up words.)

Anyway ...

I'm back for now.  Until something else comes along to distract me.  Ah, the ravages of Adult ADD.

ciao for now

posted by: willothwisp at 13:26 | link | comments (2) |
ramblings and rants

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