At least that's what Doctorow said. Have you read his story in the April 26 New Yorker yet? It's called "Edgemont Drive." It's about how difficult it is to leave a house that you've lived in all your life--how you really never leave it emotionally even though you might have physically. How the architecture becomes a part of you...the way you interpret your environment is defined by the footprint of your house.
Doctorow calls it a "distributed consciousness." The way your body remembers, kinesthetically, the motion it tracked hundreds of times a day to walk from the kitchen to the bathroom to the front door. The economy of motion that can happen simply because you know where you are in relation to everything. The rest that can happen because of the loaded meaning of home. The feeling one has that life began and so must end in this place. It's that unsettling feeling of waking up in the night and feeling sure you're back in your childhood bed.
This blog was supposed to be about how I'm writing again. I'm supposed to tell you that "book" the second, has begun and I'm being visited in the night by my new friends. This one is hard for me because it's untidy. It's veering a little too close to home (pardon the cliche). I won't say much except that I know what Doctorow was saying to us in "Edgemont Drive" and I am heartbroken because I understand it. What would a coming-home story or even a coming-of-age story be without a broken heart, a nagging sense of betrayal, an understanding of how cruel we can be to those we know best? How we allow ourselves to buy into the world's labels instead of taking the time to pursue truth?
Technology allows us to make rapid judgements and paint over whole groups of people, imprecisely, like flinging paint from a bucket. We close down and use words loosely that show our inability to look deeply anymore. We think we're connecting but we're really just missing each other. We're underestimating each other.
It's difficult to write this time of year...the little ones are back to running in circles around me and singing. I'll get there, though.
Hope everyone is having a great week!
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Another Day in Paradise
So this morning, Alan and I were invited to Amelia's 5th grade Bible class to talk about our journey along the Christian road. Alan speaks all day every day to grown-ups. He's got a real job, after all, and he's expected to be able to communicate to lots of different kinds of folks. Me, not so much. I could write it on a sign and hold it up...but saying it out loud...bah.
I must say I worried a bit about Alan taking his big people speak and translating it for eleven-year-olds. But here's the thing...Alan was the coolest dad there. Amelia slumped a little while I spoke but she grinned some kind of grin I'd never even seen on her face while daaaady spoke.
Me and the four other parents who weren't Alan all waxed philosophically about reading the Bible every day and building a firm foundation that we can stand on during hard times. The kids' eyes literally glazed, crusted and closed. Amelia often makes the cricket sound during these awkward moments and halfway through my spiel I actually wanted to make a cricket sound for myself.
But Alan...the last speaker...swooped in and talked about, of all things, a school bus! Way to understand your audience, Dad. He inspired the kids and me and had the teachers nodding wildly in agreement, too.
So here's my synopsis...
When Alan was a little one, he lived on a large ranch in North Texas. Fifteen miles outside of the small town where he went to school. His mom and dad were up at dawn getting the ranch stuff done so Alan and his sister had to catch the bus to school. The country bus... the one that rambled down the dirt roads and was such a dusty rattle trap it was always shocking when it pulled into the school parking lot. Apparently the country life produces bullies as often as city life and Alan had to face four bullies daily on that bus. Alan was little, scrawny, pencil-necked (his words not mine) and became a target. He hated the bus. He knew exactly how long the torment would last and he didn't breathe until the bus stopped at school.
Finally in the sixth grade, his mother took a job in town at a dress shop and she was able to drive Alan and his sister to school. After school they'd walk to the dress shop for the ride home. It was during this special year that Alan decided to be baptized. His little Christian church studied with the kids who wanted to be baptized so they'd know exactly what this decision meant for their lives. So, three days a week after school for several weeks, Alan went to a class at his church. And. He. Had. To. Ride. The. Bus. To. Get. There! Yes, he was back on the bus with the same bullies. Fourteen blocks from school to church and torment all the way!
And imagine their delight when they realized that the scrawny kid was riding the bus to church!
But you know what? Alan did it. He didn't miss a session. He endured. He persevered. He felt first-hand what it meant to be different for Christ. And he says he gained a perspective and a strength from the school bus debacle that prepared him for the tough days ahead. The days when his middle school and later high school friends began making poor choices. The days when he was faced with temptations sometimes too irresistible for a teenage boy. He held on to the faith that he had fought for as a sixth grader. And he made it.
He asked the kids to raise their hands if they ride the bus and then he told those kids to look for opportunities to learn and to grow. To see the bus as a little community that displays all the problems in this fallen world. To look for ways to be different and to be strong.
He said some other stuff, too, and it was good. I cried. Amelia was so proud. And the other kids liked Alan. A lot.
I like him, too. And he's all mine.
Love, Laura
I must say I worried a bit about Alan taking his big people speak and translating it for eleven-year-olds. But here's the thing...Alan was the coolest dad there. Amelia slumped a little while I spoke but she grinned some kind of grin I'd never even seen on her face while daaaady spoke.
Me and the four other parents who weren't Alan all waxed philosophically about reading the Bible every day and building a firm foundation that we can stand on during hard times. The kids' eyes literally glazed, crusted and closed. Amelia often makes the cricket sound during these awkward moments and halfway through my spiel I actually wanted to make a cricket sound for myself.
But Alan...the last speaker...swooped in and talked about, of all things, a school bus! Way to understand your audience, Dad. He inspired the kids and me and had the teachers nodding wildly in agreement, too.
So here's my synopsis...
When Alan was a little one, he lived on a large ranch in North Texas. Fifteen miles outside of the small town where he went to school. His mom and dad were up at dawn getting the ranch stuff done so Alan and his sister had to catch the bus to school. The country bus... the one that rambled down the dirt roads and was such a dusty rattle trap it was always shocking when it pulled into the school parking lot. Apparently the country life produces bullies as often as city life and Alan had to face four bullies daily on that bus. Alan was little, scrawny, pencil-necked (his words not mine) and became a target. He hated the bus. He knew exactly how long the torment would last and he didn't breathe until the bus stopped at school.
Finally in the sixth grade, his mother took a job in town at a dress shop and she was able to drive Alan and his sister to school. After school they'd walk to the dress shop for the ride home. It was during this special year that Alan decided to be baptized. His little Christian church studied with the kids who wanted to be baptized so they'd know exactly what this decision meant for their lives. So, three days a week after school for several weeks, Alan went to a class at his church. And. He. Had. To. Ride. The. Bus. To. Get. There! Yes, he was back on the bus with the same bullies. Fourteen blocks from school to church and torment all the way!
And imagine their delight when they realized that the scrawny kid was riding the bus to church!
But you know what? Alan did it. He didn't miss a session. He endured. He persevered. He felt first-hand what it meant to be different for Christ. And he says he gained a perspective and a strength from the school bus debacle that prepared him for the tough days ahead. The days when his middle school and later high school friends began making poor choices. The days when he was faced with temptations sometimes too irresistible for a teenage boy. He held on to the faith that he had fought for as a sixth grader. And he made it.
He asked the kids to raise their hands if they ride the bus and then he told those kids to look for opportunities to learn and to grow. To see the bus as a little community that displays all the problems in this fallen world. To look for ways to be different and to be strong.
He said some other stuff, too, and it was good. I cried. Amelia was so proud. And the other kids liked Alan. A lot.
I like him, too. And he's all mine.
Love, Laura
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
The Pilgrim's (I mean, book's) Progress
I just received the galley proofs for Glass Girl! Maybe I'll know a release date soon. Hope everyone is staying well and warm during this extended winter.
Love, Laura
Love, Laura
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
I'm quite illiterate, but I read a lot.
That's Holden Caulfield, of course. When Salinger died on Jan. 27 of this year, I pulled out my worn high school copy of Catcher and read it again. I enjoyed it almost as much as I did the first time I read it. You can't help but shake your head right along with Holden about all the phony, stupid, sad things going on. And he makes me smile.
"What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn't happen much, though. I wouldn't mind calling this Isak Dinesen up."
I don't think Salinger would've taken Holden's call. If it's been a while, you should read Catcher again.
"What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn't happen much, though. I wouldn't mind calling this Isak Dinesen up."
I don't think Salinger would've taken Holden's call. If it's been a while, you should read Catcher again.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Launched "Glass Girl" Book Site
Hi everyone,
I just launched my web site this evening for my new book Glass Girl.
You can access it at http://www.laurakurk.com/
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