The Joantown Flood

(click on the title link if you don't get the pun).

Well, I was meaning to post all about my Christmas (which was low-key), finishing grading, last-minute shopping, and all that, but something got in the way. I was going to send out my late Christmas cards December 26th, but then I managed to flood both my bedroom AND my downstairs office the day after Christmas (it's a good idea to check if one has left on any running water, I found). The water flowed into my bedroom and then directly downstairs through my light fixture in my office. I'd been meaning to clutter-bust my office and rearrange things, and clean the carpet, so I suppose the universe heeded my call.

We had to move everything out of the office--mind you, I try to keep this room neat, so there wasn't junk lying around, but I do have an extensive doll collection, books, all my Tarot cards, family photos--a huge amount of memorabilia, some not replaceable.

Miraculously, not one really important thing was permanently harmed, including the light fixture--three or four books got soaked, but are slowly drying in front of a fan. I only had to toss out some old papers and envelopes, and that's it. Mr. Strega rented an extractor and pulled what he guesstimated as about 20 gallons of water out of the carpets, upstairs and down. Now I have my array of giant fans running upstairs and down, and it is taking care of the residual damp very nicely. I've read about people coming home to find their houses flooded from a broken washer or something like that, with hundreds of gallons of water throughout. I figure I was lucky.

Mr. Strega remarked that he has done all kinds of household stuff for which there could have been serious consequences, dozens of times in his life (though there never have been), and he was incredibly kind throughout the flood. He took me out for pho (Vietnamese noodle soup) that night, and said he felt a lot better for my sake when I began to laugh about it all.

Hmmm...when I decided that mindfulness was a goal of mine, I suppose this wasn't what I was thinking! Still, it's a good reminder to be aware. The truth is, everyone has the potential to make a mistake like this, and mine could have been a lot more costly.

So, if you haven't got a Christmas card from me yet, well...they're on their way!

A Time To...

...breathe.

My manuscript is still being considered by an agent for Trident Media Group in New York (their clients include Deepak Chopra, Russell Banks--I had the wonderful experience of sitting with Russell Banks and Mr. Strega, long ago, well into the night in a little restaurant in San Jose, talking about all manner of things--Stephen Colbert, Molly Giles (who was one of my creative writing teachers at State), Stephen Coonts...and, heck, even Penn and Teller. My manuscript has been under consideration there for over a month now. I know it's the holidays and I am sure the agent is swamped with things to do; I don't expect to hear back for a while, and that's fine with me. Mr. Strega says that I have been remarkably calm about it all...I'm really not worried about it. I still think it is a great nod from the universe, no matter what the agent decides.

I also feel like I am querying in the crappiest economic time ever for anyone to be doing this, when the economy is so dismal...and yet this is pretty much my life's journey, facing very strange odds and finding the path through, anyhow.

I'm starting to write an essay, which I'm thinking of submitting to NPR for This I Believe, about returning to teaching after I never thought I would stand in front of a classroom again. If anything, I am beginning to write more and more, which is good. All those months of shock over my sister and mother's deaths are feeling like they are giving way to another aspect of what will probably be a lifelong process.

Finishing Up

I'm working on bits and pieces of grading, and reflecting on a memo I was sent by Dr. X, my beloved boss and chair of the department. He warned the faculty that there might be cuts in re-hiring people next year, and that those of us who were hired-in during the last couple of years may have to be let go if things get very bad. I know it kills him to write things like this. I saw him as he was about to get the memo proofread and he looked like someone had dropped a hundred pounds on his head.

It would just about kill me to have to leave teaching again; I had to leave many years ago due to my chronic illness, and it would be a shame now, having fought my way back to a time of relatively stable health, to have to let it go again. I hope it doesn't come to this--I'm perfectly happy to take one class every semester until things get better. Even though teaching is sometimes very challenging for me, I still love it and would miss it if I lost it again.

I have to say, this country is in a deplorable state and I really don't envy the Obama administration their jobs once January comes around. They are going to have to be like the folks in the circus who clean up after the elephants have passed through (literally). And that's a whole lot of crap to get rid of.

Lucky Drummer

I am so lucky to have a wonderful teacher right now, Afia Walking Tree, who is giving lessons in African drumming on various Thursday nights at Louden Nelson Center in Santa Cruz. Afia is a world-renowned percussionist and teacher, and she is both fun and really challenging. On Thursday, I played both the djembe drum and the junjun, and even managed to get a sound out of each!

I've discovered that I am terrified to hit the drum hard enough to make noise. I thought this was going to be simple--after all, I've played the doumbek (Arabic drum) for about a year now, though I haven't been practicing much lately, and have no problem getting a sound out of that. The African drums are much more challenging. I had Afia standing over me, saying, "You have to really hit the drum! You have to bring its voice out!" while I tried SO hard to get a sound, any sound, out of my djembe. It challenged me on every level of my fears about being visible, being seen, about my lifelong desire to hide in the corner.

Well, it took me about a year to not feel like a complete dork in any dance class I've ever taken; it's taken me about five years to look at myself directly in the mirror in the dance studio, and I suppose it will take me some time to give my drum its voice...but I have no doubt that one day, I'll be just as addicted to African drumming as I am with the dance.

Nearly Done

I am nearly done with this semester, and am looking forward to a break...this has nothing to do with my students, current and former (several of whom have found their welcome way to this blog), but because I have not had a real break from teaching since around this time last year. There is a point where one really has to recharge from all the energy it takes to be an effective teacher (and I frankly thought I was at about 20 percent of my capacity this semester due to the enormous work of grieving my losses).
I have some grading and a day where the faculty reads the composition finals, but that's about it.

I know I will be preparing for my next semester during the break, but I plan to just rest up, get to my yoga class more often, and really think about what I want for next semester, as a teacher and a writer. What I am losing, more and more, is the terrible frantic sense that I am running out of time because my sister ran out of time. Even from something as terrible as losing a sibling, I can walk out and say, "My life is mine."

Where It Went

Every time I go to my writing group, I feel like some sort of...well, not a sort of writing fake, just lame. I never have any work at all, not since finishing the book in July. I am never good with the times when writing is on hiatus.

There are times I wonder, even when it's silly, if the Muse is real and if I managed to offend mine somehow. I wrote tonight that my Muse, my goddess in the ether who directs my poetry and prose, is a sort of gypsy dressed in rags and tinsel, peacock feathers and sequins, with a touch of small dry bones, flecks of blood and shadow. What did I do to make her go away, slip under the transom of winter, leaving me stranded? I would like to go to the place where I scattered my lost sister's flowers in the autumn woods, make a ritual to the goddess, coax her back. I am always, I think, going to be one of those writers who struggles for every word.

Well, okay, that's a bit dramatic. I suppose I can say I'm hollowed still by grief, though the well is gradually filling again, but how incredibly gradual. There are times one has to trust even in times when words won't congeal into lines, lines won't congeal into poems. I have to trust that the poems, the stories, are waiting and will come back, maybe better than before. My lost sister understood this: when I began to act like a tiger pacing its cage, the writing was about to return. Now that she is not here to remind me of this, I have to, consciously, hoping this restlessness is a sign of rebirth, the goddess waving at me from the infinite dark.

One agent passed on the partial, one still has the full manuscript

I did promise myself I'd keep my faithful readers updated on the book and my renewed search for an agent.

One agent has passed on the partial manuscript, and one agent (the one I would gladly give my eyeteeth to represent me) still has the full manuscript. I've had a few agents pass in the last couple of days on my query, but I still have ten who have not responded (it's also standard these days to not get a response at all unless they are interested).

I think what helps me in this search the most is to treat this like a business, as always. Sure, I've got just as much anticipation and hope as anyone else, but I don't take the rejections personally--I figure that they clear the way for the exact right person to represent the book. I think the best thing to do with all aspects of writing and publishing is to have a positive outlook.

One thing I know about myself is that, writing-wise, I have never given up and so it's unlikely I ever will--because I think at least ninety percent of becoming a presence, in all of the arts, and perhaps in anything, is to maintain a Zen-like sense of persistence. There is no failure, not at all.