writing and seduction

"Have you written anything for me lately?"

Well, no.  Nothing at all.

So. What's the problem?  And actually, I want to solve here a larger problem.  The problem of bad writing altogether, especially that of undergrads.  And maybe a few grad students as well.  Or.  To be honest.  Maybe a lot of grad students.  

And then I'll solve the teaching problem too.  But not till the end of the post. Or next post, if I don't get around to it.  But I think I will.

No.  I haven't written anything for you lately.  I've been too busy sleeping with you. Camping with you.  Doing the being-together thing with you.  I haven't written a goddamned word.  Cooking. Doing the laundry.  Emptying the trash.  Muzzling the barky dog. Unmuzzling the quiet dog. Setting up the new computer to start writing.  Clearing off the desk.  Picking up the dogs shit.  Working out, for god's sake!

Anything, anything at all but writing.  

Which spells for me a stage of life that might be called 'post-seduction.'

It's that easy (still early enough) part of a relationship in which just picking up someone else's dog's shit is still kinda a kick enough to be fun.  And done out of love and reciprocity (I pick up your dog shit, you pick up mine), and has not descended into resentment, or even worse—rage. Horrors. Don't get me wrong: it doesn't ever need to go that way.  I think I like this stage of post-seduction. I like the mutuality of it.  The minutiae of it.  It's pretty easy.  But I'm not sure it's quite enough.

Because writing is a powerful seduction.

I don't mean the kind of writing written explicitly in order to make a million bucks or two.  I don't mean strategic writing. The porn of how he gets laid every X number of pages because you think that sells. That's not seduction. That's ambition. And I'm not talking about ambition.

The Story of O didn't make those big bucks because it was trying to seduce a large well-paying audience. Anne Desclos (Pauline Réage) had only an audience of one in mind.  Everyone else has been just eavesdropping on a very private conversation.

And that's why it works.

The best writing has a sense of urgency as well as a very clear sense of audience.

Desclos knew what she was doing.  As did Genet, when he sat in prison pleasuring himself with words. The stuff just pours out (the words, I mean—though with Genet, that would be both), because there's no way to dam the flow.  Compelling writing is like that.  And it doesn't have to reach everybody.  It just has to reach that one person.  The eavesdroppers come along for the ride. They're a freebie, if you will.

Undergrads primarily write out of obligation.  Coercion.

"How many pages do you want?" they ask in dismay.

They're not all like OMG, can you believe it, I GET to write something... I am so jazzed...  

Think about it, students (if I may address you as such, just for a moment, one last time). When school is finally over, it is very likely that no one will ever give you the opportunity to take the time and just pour out your words ever again.  For some of you, it's very likely you'll never ever write again. At least, that's what you've told me.

And you've forgotten, it seems, that someone has to read this crap you've flung at us as pages filled.  Student papers have to be read (unlike that porn, the NYT, or any other written word).  Someone has to read them.  And that someone used to be me.  But no, no more.  With luck, I will never read another student paper ever again.  

So. I'm gonna say this straight out (and with all due respect)—and I hope it helps.  And maybe I should have said it in class. But no, you'd have taken it all wrong—

The best papers are a seduction.

They're written with words put together with that one specific 'audience' in mind.  Beautiful combinations of words. Just for me, for you, whomever. A topic filled with three parts desire for every part called eloquent.  Seduction trumps eloquence any day.

It doesn't matter what the topic is.  

Write about-the-economy-stupid. Write about Romney. Saddam (curious unconscious transition there). Write about whether to fund (or weaponize) Syrian rebels. Or how to get your name on a crater of Mars. Write about daffodils in the very early springtime.  Drought mid-summer. What you had for breakfast this morning (and why we should care).  Write about the gods. It's never ever about the subject anyway.

But if you're writing for that goddamned grade (or to make you that fortune you think is there)—you've missed the mark.  You've got to be turned on by your own writing.

Seduce yourself, first and foremost, no matter the topic.

There's a flush, a blush in those students who fall in love with their own work.  Their cheeks blossom, their eyes twinkle.  They're not being strategic, they're being excited by the material at hand.

I haven't written for you lately.

I've been too busy doing anything but writing. 

Because my own writings were missives to death, love songs to the dead and dying. Remembrances, lest I forget. Tales to my children, lest they never have the opportunity to remember. Stories that will be forever gone if I don't write them down.  No one else can do it.

In the face of death and dying, I seduce myself with words.  Genet was ever my best teacher.

Ah, but here's the rub.  Let me not put this all upon the student who writes because he feels he's forced. Because the-system's telling him to jump through hoops, crank out those pages. Because he's stuck with an English class (or god-forbid, Anthropology) and he's an Engineering student. And shit, I have to in order to-get-outta-here. Goddamn it, when they resent their being in school, it drives me mad!

This goes for teachers, too, you know.

Teaching is seduction, too.

A prominent psychoanalyst told me that one time when I complained to him of such.

Not a seduction of the person, but of the material at hand.  If you as you lecture are in love with your topic, that is the best seduction of all.  (In truth, that's not quite what he said.  To an analyst, it's all about the person).  

Topic doesn't matter. Ancient Greek or Pleistocene dentition. The fall of the Ottoman Empire. Black holes. Who cares?  It's all seduction-worthy.

Blow on those embers and makes them glow.

I've been doing laundry, not writing. Cooking for you. And eating your own exotic meals.  Camping out, and hiking trails. Studying pig roasts and fishin' holes. Walking dogs and bagging dog shit together. I've been doing chop wood, carry water of late. Pouring out a simple kind of love and not seduction.

In other words, I started just to live again. And started leaving all those stories far behind.

School is starting in a week or two—and for the first time in my sentient life I won't be there to greet it.  For me, school is finally, finally over.

But life is not as much fun without a little seduction now and then.  Time to pick up that quill again, and try my rusty hand.  

the retirement

They live on a large island on the west coast. Of Norway. Population 3,500. It's got panoramic vistas of the water in every direction. No high rises. Even the few new houses look sleepy and old.  Wooden houses, right up to the rocks and the water. It looks very very quiet. But they've got a little boat and they go fishing. And if the cat gets lost, there's an animal-man who can conjure kitty home.

If there were any woods, I'd say it was very back woods. But there aren't any. There are just neighbors not too close, and a market you can walk to. Though you wouldn't want to hike back with a heavy load of groceries.  Retired, remember. So, yes. They have a car.

So. They live in this remote, idyllic place. The kind of place I tend to dream of.

And then there's Thailand.

They've been to Thailand thirteen, fourteen times. They're hooked on Thailand.

And they've been to Disneyland. The one in Florida.

And they've been to Spain. And France. And Turkey.

But mostly, it's Thailand.

"What did you used to do?" I asked.

"I worked for a big company. Service."

I'm not sure what that means. And it didn't get any clearer.

They were animated and delightful and energetic. Got in almost at midnight last night. Their host had started to worry. But they'd been to a million places that I myself had never been to in my own city. Truth be told, I know nothing about what-to-do-or-see in my own town.

I've decided that Norwegian is an impossible language. It appears to be composed of mostly slurry vowels.  I can't get a grasp on a single word without some major explication.

I've decided that remote idyllic islands might not be something I should dream about, at least not for moving to in case of actual retirement. I mean, here they are living in Paradise, wishing it weren't quite so cold, and traveling abroad as much as possible.

Actually, they're having the time of their lives.  Visiting places like my home town.

And I've been invited to their remote island.  And sure, I accept, how could I not?  And maybe I will master some of those slurry Norwegian vowels. And maybe I'll go fishing upon that quiet sea. Maybe I'll walk down the path to their painterly water's edge—

Only to discover that I live where I'm supposed to. Only to find that I'm doing what I should.

But there it was, for a brief moment, right in front of me: Two people. With no papers to grade.
                                                                              

mark

It doesn't seem like over thirty years but apparently it is.  I can't say that I've known him all that time.  I can merely say that we've had the same abbreviated  conversation for probably about that long. Ritualized. Mumbling. Not really checking in. Rote. Playing our roles. Routinized.

But sometime this past year something changed.  Is it that he looked up or that I did? Not sure.

"You're that doctor," he said, actually looking in my eyes.  "Wait, don't tell me ..."

I waited. But the line was going to get restless.

"Anthropologist," I said.

"Right."

And the conversation for a few months went like that—

"Wait, don't tell me—"

I'd wait.

"Archaeologist?" he'd say.

Close enough.

And after all these years of mumbled, "debit or credit?" the conversation took a turn at the check out line.

Slowly, I learned that he had been a history major at San Francisco State. That what he loved most was history. And that he had over three hundred history books in his apartment. And that he spent four to five hours a day reading.

"I have a book for you," I'd say. But invariably I'd left it in the car. And thought it obnoxious to go back out to get it. And then at a certain point, not standing it any longer, Rh cleaned out the back of my car — and I couldn't find the book.  Still can't.  But I've got another copy.

So. Today's conversation took another turn.

"Archaeologist?" he said — after we went through the preliminaries.

"Close enough. Anthropologist."

"Right," he said.

"I still have that book for you—"

"Today's my last day," he said.  "After thirty-three years, I'm retiring!"

"Mazel tov," I said, realizing that was culturally inappropriate. "Congrats," I said. And "yikes— I still have that book for you—"

I ran home with my four bags of groceries and left them in the car.  I scoured the garage. No Ibn Khaldun.  The one I wanted to give him was pristene. I'd given it to bio-father about thirty-five years ago. It had never been opened. And yet Al-Muqaddimah is one of the most profound takes on world history that ought to be read in the West.  It was written in 1377, and — and you're probably sick of hearing me talk about it.

Scoured upstairs as well. All I could find was my own home edition of Al-Muqaddimah. You know, the one with all the paper clips, stickies and underlining.  It was sitting on top of the three volume edition that I hold as close to sacred as I can manage.

I took a breath, and grabbed my own copy. And headed back to Andronico's.  He still had five more hours before leaving the grocery forever. Yet still, the line before his register seemed as endless as it did every single time I'd stood in it.  Wow. In a few more hours, no more Mark! But the uncaring line would pile up anyway.

I handed him the book.

"Do you want it back?" he asked, noting the clips and stickies.

"No, keep it," I said, hoping that my notes might help.  I realized suddenly that he too might not read it, just as biofather had not. But that the notes might help him engage and make it more user-friendly.

"It's written in 1377," I added, hoping that would help.

"A primary source!" he said.

And he beamed.

reasons for staying alive

We were signing papers. Getting them notarized. It was a jocular moment. I was trying hard to keep it that way. I was giving him complete authority to take over my affairs should my brain start to melt and/or body start to fry its circuits. For that time, in other words, when we cease to be able to make rational decisions that matter.

We finished all the paperwork and were leaving the little FedEx/Notary shop on Fillmore Street. Done. Good. Check that off the list. I get so proud of myself for taking care of stuff. Any stuff. And this was a big chunk of stuff. Since my dad's death I'd been fairly frantic to make sure everything-would-be-in-order when my own time starts playing itself out. OCD? Perhaps. Just being responsible? Somewhere inbetween? Dunno.

We were leaving the shop.

"Wait a minute," he said. "Does this mean that if you die, I'd have to take care of your mother?"

I could see the panic rising.

I looked at him. It hadn't even crossed my mind until he uttered those words. So I added this to my list of reasons for staying alive: keep that panic and horror out of other people's eyes. Poor reason, I hear you say, but it got added to the list nevertheless.

And I've been brooding about it ever since. That responsibility to stay alive and keep myself absolutely safe — so that she will be safe as well.

"It's raining," she'll say. "Don't go out. You will slip. You could fall."

"It's going to rain," she'll say. "don't go to work!" Real panic in her voice. It's more than maternal concern.

"You've got a cold..."

"You might get a cold..."

"Have Rh walk the dog for you. Don't go out on those cliffs!"

"Tell T to make you soup. Lots of lemon."

"You must take a spoon full of honey before you go to bed."

"You are not to go to work today."

I don't remember any of this stuff from when I was a kid. Maybe because she would just make the soup, or just stick a spoonful of honey in my mouth, or just order me to not go out. All very hard to do to a grownup who lives across the bridge and is known for having a mind of her own. A woman you can't trust will follow any of your orders. I mean, wow! What if I'd taken every day off from work that she insisted upon? I'd probably be out of a job right now, right? But safe? Healthier? I've never bought it.

The panic in her voice is only in the past year or so. The year of slow recovery from a massive brain injury. The year of suddenly slipping into ever increasing dependence after a lifetime of authoritative fatwas. But now there's pleading in her voice.

Even when I had babes in arms I didn't feel quite this essential to the functioning of another human being. Even nursing babies. It just felt like we were one organism — one organism in love with ourselves. Quite literally feeding off each other's essences. Babes in arms don't feel like separate entities requiring caregiving. No. There was no separation at all. We functioned as a single unit. Weirdly, even with my kids grown and living in Brooklyn, it still feels like that. They know what to do. They know what I would want for them. They are of the body. I know they know how to survive.

Why don't I feel that way about my mother?

I watch her slip away. I watch her try to reclaim herself. I watch her awe that I'm there for her.

The fact is, she'd probably be just fine without me, just as my kids are just fine a phone call away. Someone would step in. Someone would take charge.

Oh. And that would be him. And thus, his panic. He is by far one of the two most decent people I have ever known in my life. He would do it. Take over. Get her settled in a viable —sustainable, even— abode, where everything would be taken care of. Still. It's a lot of pressure. It's another reason for staying alive.

This isn't a personal statement. This is a generational one. As we ourselves begin to drop dead, those of us who live are charged with caring for our own aging and declining parents. My own concerns are echoed by almost every friend and colleague I have and know. Each tale is unique in its permutation, in its own particular form of suffering. Our elders are suffering. They don't know how to do this.

The pundits are all wrong about our generation. They don't have as much to worry about our survival as they think. We'll be gone in the flash of a flash. But in the meantime, we are the ones taking care of our own aging parents. And we're a large enough cohort to learn from each others' experience. If we're good at anything, it's creative thinking. We'll probably do our own demise the way we did our own rise in the '60s — filled with shifts in consciousness, filled with new ways to make it work (without a lot of cost). Maybe we'll choose fewer interventions. Or more ways to serve. Fewer golf course mentalities. And more of us working until we can't.

Reasons for staying alive: we're pretty good at figuring stuff out... and we find it kind of fun. But hold on, I'll get back to you. The soup is almost done...

compost stinks (aka: can I scream now?)

Each year I pick a quality to embody. I was taught this by my Sensei Wendy Palmer, sword mistress extraordinaire. Studying with Wendy was completely frustrating (for me, not her, I think. People come to her in part because they don't get it). And most of the time I just didn't get it. Not the first time, not the second, not the third. The problem being, of course, that I was trying to think things through. And she was trying to get me more into my body. The art of not-thinking. Thinking just got in the way.

She kept saying things like, "Compost stinks." Flatly. No affect. Just a commentary. A truism. While we're working on swords. I now realize that she was trying to reassure me. I studied with Wendy privately — she wasn't the Sensi at my own dojo — and I really needed her help. And she came up with 'compost stinks' and I kept not understanding her.

Compost stinks?

And so I'd think about that (instead of not-thinking).

It took many months — it took until I was working in my own garden actually composting — for me to get it. Get what she was after.

But when she said that everyone should have a quality, I knew instantly what she meant, and I knew what mine would be. Her practice is to select a quality to embody for one year. Every action, then, is enacted from the perspective of this quality. Every minute, every day, for the entire year.

My first quality was Mystery. I mean, what else would it be? It made everything exciting, everything something I'd want to know more about. Everything something that I could never know everything about. (and yes, I know, that's not a real sentence). These were followed by more banal qualities like Patience, Tolerance, Self-Discipline, and the like. Tolerance was by far the worst. It made it impossible to grade papers. Until way into the depths of Spring Semester, I realized that what I needed to discover were the limits of — not just be tolerant of any muck around me.

So. This year (this very very difficult year) my quality has been Laughter. While dealing with hospitals and hospice, caregivers, and schedules and meds and oxygen tanks and dysfunctional wheel chairs, walkers, and hospital beds — there's always something to laugh about. Funeral arrangements, grave diggers, manicured lawns, old faces I haven't seen since high school. Now, that last one is pretty funny. I've not been laughing at death and dying, per se. But the industries that we've built up around them are hysterically sad. The bureaucracy of dying. Bank forms and notaries, lawyers. Death certificates (everyone wants one!), Power of Attorney, Advance Directives. Lost car titles. Forms to retrieve lost car titles... I've found a place where laughter and being of good humor have helped. I've been smooth, and calm, with little laugh lines in the corner of my eyes. Not all the time, but enough of the time. And of course, I've also cried. But essentially, the quality of Laughter has served me well.

Until now. Right now, I have failed miserably in the embodiment of laughter. And what is it that has done me in?

UPS

And I realize now, it's not even the first time. UPS was supposed to deliver an 'overnight' letter to me six days ago. At first they claimed the delay was due to a wrong zip code. So they sent the letter back to somewhere. Next day, same thing. I mean, what's the matter with them? They fixed the zip code, and managed to add an apartment number. Following day, didn't deliver the letter because (they say) they came to the address and there was no 'apartment 5.' And then it was the weekend. And then it started all over again. Another two days, and now they say they give up: come pick up the bloody letter yourself. You have a window of a half hour this evening, if you want it today.

And I'm not laughing.

So. All that death and dying business, Aikido training, private Wendy Palmer, years of meditation. Whatever. And I'm done in by a late overnight letter.

This is the compost of which Wendy spoke. And compost, as she reminded us so often, stinks.

The letter I'm waiting for consists of a shitload of money (to me, anyway), (note the unintentional compost reference here) a check, not made out to me, but a 'rollover' to my so-called pension plan that I hope to depend on from now on. It's not the State's money, it's mine, just needing to get to the right place at the right time. And the deadline is fast approaching. And this is me just falling apart over it. And why aren't I laughing?

While most people might think of compost in terms of methods of production, I'm more concerned with its distribution.

Compost is scattered (excuse another bad pun) over the garden, mixed into the soil, and helps provide the nutrients needed for planted seeds to grow. The compost period is the duration it requires from the time you plant until the first shoots begin to come up. This is the time that Wendy is talking about. The time period during which all the growth is taking place underground where you can't see it.

All the practice. All the doing. All the preparing. And still not seeing the results manifest. Yah, that really stinks. And it feels like nothing's happening. 'Cause there's no visible sign, even after months and months of preparation.

So. I started all this retirement prep years ago really. That's what they say to do. Save for retirement, 'cause no one else is gonna take care of you when you're no longer working, right? And that letter — that letter that UPS won't deliver — is the very last step to having everything in order.

Now, that's pretty funny.

If I believed in a sentient universe, I might think the universe was sending me a message. You sure you want to do this? Or maybe the message is, you're really not there yet. Or, let's just make this as difficult as possible. Or, let's see if we can give you a heart attack before your retirement date, and just save all that money and give some of it to your kids or something. The State, of course, will want the rest.

So. It's not a conspiracy or anything like that. Not stupidity. Not incompetence. Just a misprinted label on a letter that has me at wit's end. And I'm thinking that I'm over-thinking this. Step back, head for the trails on the cliff above the ocean. Let the dog run free, and laugh. While I'm waiting for the buds to peak through the soil. But it's summer already, wasn't this supposed to happen months ago?

Next year, maybe I'll pick the Quality of Serenity or something else equally incomprehensible. That should be something to laugh about.

When all this UPS waiting is over, and all the bloody papers are filed, and everything's worked out for the best, then I'll be willing to admit, that compost doesn't really stink so bad after all. Like labor, we forget all about that part when the flowers begin to bloom.