Thank you thank you thank you!
We loved writing (and reading, and listening, and learning!) with you last night.
This is the post for your snippets and continuing post-class questions. We’ll see you in the comments.
Love,
Jeannine & Billie
Readings
Exteriority: Two Hearts By Brian Doyle from God is Love
Some months ago my wife delivered twin sons one minute apart. The older is Joseph and the younger is Liam. Joseph is dark and Liam is light. Joseph is healthy and Liam is not. Joseph has a whole heart and Liam has half. This means that Liam will have two major surgeries before he is three years old.
I have read many pamphlets about Liam’s problem. I have watched many doctors’ hands drawing red and blue lines on pieces of white paper. They are trying to show me why Liam’s heart doesn’t work properly. I watch the markers in the doctors’ hands. Here comes red, there goes blue. The heart is a railroad station where the trains are switched to different tracks. A normal heart switches trains flawlessly two billion times in a life; in an abnormal heart, like Liam’s, the trains crash and the station crumbles to dust.
So there are many nights now when I tuck Liam and his wheezing train station under my beard in the blue hours of night and think about his Maker. I would kill the god who sentence him to such awful pain, I would stab him in the heart like he stabbed my son, I would shove my fury in his face like a fist, but I know in my own broken heart that this same god made my magic boys, shaped their apple faces and coyote eyes, put joy in the eager suck of their mouths. So it is that my hands are not clenched in anger but clasped in confused and merry and bitter prayer.
I talk to God more than I admit, “Why did you break my boy?” I ask.
I gave you that boy, he says, and his lean brown brother, and the elfin daughter you love so.
“But you wrote death on his heart,” I say.
I write death on all hearts, he says, just as I write life.
This is where the conversation always ends and I am left holding the extraordinary awful perfect prayer of my second son, who snores like a seal, who might die tomorrow, who did not die today.
Restraint: Still, Casey Mulligan Walsh
You can come in now, they say, holding open the door between the waiting room and the inner sanctum of the ER, and I stand, smoothing my wispy summer dress and unsticking my bare legs from the vinyl chair where I’ve waited for a half hour that’s seemed like days, still praying, knowing yet not knowing, listening to the whirr of the helicopter blades on the pad on the other side of the window, never realizing it was there for my son, should he make it, but he didn’t make it, that’s what the doctor said when she came to tell me moments ago, sadness in her eyes, her shoulders stooped like someone had given her a thousand-ton weight to pass on to me, and everything got quiet in my head, as if snow had fallen all around me and nothing, not the hugest boulder dropped from the highest height, could ever make a sound that would reach me in there, and my dear friend follows me through that door, still a mama bear like always—no putting anything in my way on her watch—and the nurses, somber and anxious, steer me to the first room on the right, the one where I spent a long Sunday twelve years ago with my one-year-old daughter who’d burned her hand on a heater in a freak October snowstorm—she left bandaged and groggy yet she’d be fine, the worst is over, I thought then—but now my son, always so full of life, lies on a gurney in the center of the room, still, eyes closed but mouth open, like he’s had a bad day and needs to sleep it off, that’s all, the air is heavy and charged and smells of antiseptic, and the medical staff hover behind me, Hold her elbow, she’ll faint one man says, and, annoyed, I ask them to leave, they can’t understand, how could they, that I’ve known this would be the end of the story, the one I’ve dreaded, the only one that’s ever made sense, with life spinning wild until it blew us all apart and no end in sight, and I speak to my son in my mind, my first baby, the one who made us a family, who brought me back to family after all of mine had died, oh how his antics delighted us back then, no hint of the danger to come, I tell him he can rest now, that I understand, my words senseless yet swollen with meaning, and a breeze caresses my cheek in what is surely a hug from beyond, then it’s gone—his spirit knew better than to hang around in this room rank with death and decay, that’s how it feels—See you later, Mom, I hear him say, on the tops of the trees, that’s where I’ll be, and by God, he is there, decades later, still my shining star, still shouting, Look at me, Mom, he still can’t sit still, my boy, he’s with me. Still.
Third Level Emotion: The Part That Burns, Jeannie Ouellette
Brandy and Pete run free behind our house. Back there, you have emptiness all the way to Casper Mountain—it’s just greasewood and short grass, plus millions of sagebrushes. Old sagebrushes are hard and twisted but baby ones have nice soft hairs. Mama says Wyoming is ugly, but I think she’s not looking with her eyes. Some cactuses have tiny flowers. If you stand still, you might see a lizard or some bright yellow birds. You might even see a jackalope. But probably not, because jackalopes aren’t real. My favorite thing behind our house is the smell—dark and peppery with something sweet I don’t know.
If something bad happens and only you see it, it could be your fault. Like when Pete slinks home whining and Mama gets down on her knees to look underneath him. Mama’s nylons have a run. Sometimes she uses clear fingernail polish to fix runs, but it doesn’t work for holes. “That’s a big bruise he’s got here,” Mama says to Mafia. Her pretty round bun is falling loose, and strands of hair cover her face. I like to watch Mama in the bathroom when she twists her thick hair up, holding the bobby pins in her mouth so she can use two hands. “Look at that, will you?” Mama says now. “I think this dog got hit.” On TV, the person is guessing the price of onion soup. I don’t like onions, but I watch anyway. Some kids will blurt things out just because they’re scared. But not me. I can keep secrets. Like how on my way home from school I saw Pete run across Albert Street, how the red car screeched, how Pete made that high, sharp sound.
This working document--also known as a Substack post--is how we’d like to capture questions, close reading observations, work you’ll share during class, etc., it is also where you will be able to find tonight’s readings and the followup readings for this class once it’s over, and, the best part, we think, is that the post provides an opportunity for everyone here to continue this conversation going forward.
To keep the comments on that post as usable and navigable as possible, please use the following conventions on your comments:
For questions, start with with QUESTION all caps,
For observations on close readings, use CLOSE READING and the name of the piece, all caps
For sharing snippet of your own work when we get to that part, use the name of the craft principle, as in EXTERIORITY, RESTRAINT, or THIRD LEVEL EMOTION and then your snippet.
Friends, you are amazing--amazing. All of your words, your questions, your curiosity, your energy, your hearts. We loved writing with you.
We will send out all the followup readings tomorrow, along with a link to this post (for the ones who missed class, so they can find it and participate), and the recording and the AI transcript (cross your fingers that it's any good--new tool for us, hopefully it's better than nothing). And Billie and I will be in and out of this comment thread starting tomorrow and over the course of the next days/week, etc. Meanwhile, thank you, thank you, thank you. What an honor!