May 5, 2016
Long abandoned, this blog is now being rescued. Why? Because I am finally publishing my long-incubating memoir: Salvation - A Judge's Memoir of a Mormon Childhood. What a ride it has been! And whether it sinks or swims, the experience has been so thrilling, yet so dispiriting, so vital, yet so enervating, that I want to encourage ALL WRITERS (and yes, you are writer whether you publish or not) to keep at it, don't give up, write every day, and "endeavor to persevere." Keep track of your life, if only for you, by blogging, journaling, writing letters, recording tapes, photographing - so that years later you will read and smile or cry, and know who you have been on your way to becoming who you are.
So I must set an example, no?
And as years before, I encourage all folks, writers or no, to post comments and critiques whether complimentary or curmudgeony. Connect.
Friday, May 6, 2016
Monday, March 2, 2009
Inherited Characteristics
The next three weeks I will be in So. Korea, visiting my son's family: Greg, Jinny, and my grandson, Noah. But before I go:
Here's another prompt for you writers ready to write but stuck, or you writers writing but ready for some fun, or just you writers:
#4 - Write two pages about a physical characteristic you are proud to have inherited and passed on. (Abigail Thomas, Thinking About Memoir)
Here's my effort (NOW WRITE AND POST YOUR OWN):
My father left me his flat, hairless chest, his big bum, and his balding crown. Which of these I am most proud of I can’t say, but I have passed them all on to my son, Greg, and, in truth, I am proud of that: Whereas all three have made me self-conscious, they have made him humble.
I became conscious of my lack of bosom in junior high school, as I saw buds beginning to bulge on my girlfriends. By the time we showered en masse after high school gym class, I was painfully aware of the fulsome, pendulous, and swinging breasts all around. They filled my peripheral vision as I hunched my shoulders, bending inward like a closing book to hide my blank pages.
My mother came to my rescue with a bra – not the training bra I had been eyeing at Kress, but a full-sized monstrous thing, padded with foam so firm that when I put it on I suddenly had the Wasatch Mountains on my chest. This gargantuan thing I wore through high school and college, attracting admiring and slavering gazes from the boys, and no small amazement from the men I slept with when, on the first encounter, they reached to grasp these cups of flesh and embraced instead a springy, lumpy, or hardened ball of foam, depending on the age of the bra or, worse, nothing but a wrinkled raspberry nipple on a plate.
My bum was equally problematic, hanging on behind me like two koala babies riding in a back pouch. Pants that fit my bum cheeks were long in the leg and wide at the waist. Mother to the rescue again girdled me in a tube of elastic so tight I developed diverticulitis and weave lines on my abdomen that remained in my flesh like birth marks. “Good for having babies,” she soothed, but since she never really explained the process of birth, I thought I was pregnant in the bum.
These sartorial disabilities I discarded (along with makeup, high heels, tight clothes, and styled hair) when the women’s movement freed me from artificial beauty, and I proudly wore my chest and cheeks as outward signs of inner beauty. When I began to jog, I reduced my posterior gallon jugs to half-gallons, and winced for those unlucky women trying to run with twin sacks of flour flapping on their chests.
The balding I don’t care to discuss except to say that I certainly understand those pitiful men who so lovingly take the few strands of hair left and pull them across the entire pate, as though these strings will cover up for the viewing public the shiny pink globe beneath. We do what we can.
My son has been a great teacher to me. He happily exposes his hairless chest as though he is the lucky man unburdened with all that sweaty hair. He elegantly wears his pants as though pleased with the extra room in the legs which the bum-fitting slacks bequeath him. And when we talk on Skype, he bends his head right in front of the computer webcam; so there I am in Salt Lake City, looking at his balding circle in Korea. He laughs and says “Look what you gave me, Mom. More to appreciate every day!”
That’s what he has taught me: appreciation. “It is as it is,” he says. And to that I might add, “It isn’t as it isn’t.” And for that, we should be grateful.
Here's another prompt for you writers ready to write but stuck, or you writers writing but ready for some fun, or just you writers:
#4 - Write two pages about a physical characteristic you are proud to have inherited and passed on. (Abigail Thomas, Thinking About Memoir)
Here's my effort (NOW WRITE AND POST YOUR OWN):
My father left me his flat, hairless chest, his big bum, and his balding crown. Which of these I am most proud of I can’t say, but I have passed them all on to my son, Greg, and, in truth, I am proud of that: Whereas all three have made me self-conscious, they have made him humble.
I became conscious of my lack of bosom in junior high school, as I saw buds beginning to bulge on my girlfriends. By the time we showered en masse after high school gym class, I was painfully aware of the fulsome, pendulous, and swinging breasts all around. They filled my peripheral vision as I hunched my shoulders, bending inward like a closing book to hide my blank pages.
My mother came to my rescue with a bra – not the training bra I had been eyeing at Kress, but a full-sized monstrous thing, padded with foam so firm that when I put it on I suddenly had the Wasatch Mountains on my chest. This gargantuan thing I wore through high school and college, attracting admiring and slavering gazes from the boys, and no small amazement from the men I slept with when, on the first encounter, they reached to grasp these cups of flesh and embraced instead a springy, lumpy, or hardened ball of foam, depending on the age of the bra or, worse, nothing but a wrinkled raspberry nipple on a plate.
My bum was equally problematic, hanging on behind me like two koala babies riding in a back pouch. Pants that fit my bum cheeks were long in the leg and wide at the waist. Mother to the rescue again girdled me in a tube of elastic so tight I developed diverticulitis and weave lines on my abdomen that remained in my flesh like birth marks. “Good for having babies,” she soothed, but since she never really explained the process of birth, I thought I was pregnant in the bum.
These sartorial disabilities I discarded (along with makeup, high heels, tight clothes, and styled hair) when the women’s movement freed me from artificial beauty, and I proudly wore my chest and cheeks as outward signs of inner beauty. When I began to jog, I reduced my posterior gallon jugs to half-gallons, and winced for those unlucky women trying to run with twin sacks of flour flapping on their chests.
The balding I don’t care to discuss except to say that I certainly understand those pitiful men who so lovingly take the few strands of hair left and pull them across the entire pate, as though these strings will cover up for the viewing public the shiny pink globe beneath. We do what we can.
My son has been a great teacher to me. He happily exposes his hairless chest as though he is the lucky man unburdened with all that sweaty hair. He elegantly wears his pants as though pleased with the extra room in the legs which the bum-fitting slacks bequeath him. And when we talk on Skype, he bends his head right in front of the computer webcam; so there I am in Salt Lake City, looking at his balding circle in Korea. He laughs and says “Look what you gave me, Mom. More to appreciate every day!”
That’s what he has taught me: appreciation. “It is as it is,” he says. And to that I might add, “It isn’t as it isn’t.” And for that, we should be grateful.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Prompt: Get Me Out of Here!
In Abigail Thomas's perfect potpurri of a book for writers -Thinking About Memoir she lists about 150 + prompts to prompt you to write promptly - every day. Here's one to try. And my effoirt - just a ten-minute freewrite. Go! And post it if you are willing.
#128 Write two pages starting with "Get me out of here!"
Effort by Katharine English.
Get me out of here! Everywhere – demands! At every turn – a favor asked. All my creditors come forward demanding payment, favors, help. Help!
You have no idea how burdensome my life is. An example – Anthony called four times yesterday, each time pleading: “Can you look at this latest letter I’ve written to the D.A.?” “Will you proof my resume?” “I know you’re not practicing anymore, but I have a legal question about foreclosure…” Of course, I say yes. He’s my brother.
Lucy wants a letter of recommend to Goddard College’s MFA program. She lacks self-esteem, wants to know if I think she’ll be admitted. Of course she will, I say. Will I write this, and say that, and render my opinion of her poetry? Of course I say I will. She’s my sister.
Harry wants to have breakfast. He won’t talk about anything personal, he never does. But I will chat and cheer him. We will laugh. I will examine his fifteenth-year coin and praise his sobriety. Of course we will. He’s my brother.
Sandy wants to chat, unable once again to decide “Should I live in Hawaii where I’m so healthy? Should I live in Mt. Vernon next to the twenty-two grandchildren?” “Sereta,” I say, “Your family runs you ragged and your lungs close down. Hello?” Still, I spend an hour on the phone. Of course I do. She’s my sister.
They are just my siblings. There are my friends, my writing group, my husband and my step-daughter. Give me time, give me feedback, give me breakfast, give me tuition. Of course I say yes, yes, yes, yes.
My office chides, “Clean me.” The school calls, “Can you sub?” My doctor asks, “Are you coming?” I do, I go, I am.
In Sunday School I learned and (does this surprise anyone?) still can sing a child’s song:
Give said the little stream
Give, oh give, Give, oh give
Give said the little stream
As it hurried down the hill
I'm small I know but wherever I go
The grass grows greener still
Give said the little rain
Give, oh give,Give, oh give
Give said the little rain
As it fell upon the flowers
I'll raise their weary heads again
As it fell upon the flowers
If I turned off the phone and closed my computer, if I put away my calendar, if I said no and no and no, what would I do? I would drive to the Bear Lake cabin and sit on the porch, my legs on the rail, watching the sun rise like a red scarf over the lake in the eastern sky before me, watching the light and shadows play like children on those same hills in the evening. I would read books and magazines, and cook spinach lasagna and eat too much fruit, and write in my journal, and dust, and polish, and tidy my drawers, and alphabetize my spices, and arrange my closet by colors and soon, maybe even very soon, I would stand on the porch and yell into the silent air.
“Get me out of here.”
Of course…I’m me.
#128 Write two pages starting with "Get me out of here!"
Effort by Katharine English.
Get me out of here! Everywhere – demands! At every turn – a favor asked. All my creditors come forward demanding payment, favors, help. Help!
You have no idea how burdensome my life is. An example – Anthony called four times yesterday, each time pleading: “Can you look at this latest letter I’ve written to the D.A.?” “Will you proof my resume?” “I know you’re not practicing anymore, but I have a legal question about foreclosure…” Of course, I say yes. He’s my brother.
Lucy wants a letter of recommend to Goddard College’s MFA program. She lacks self-esteem, wants to know if I think she’ll be admitted. Of course she will, I say. Will I write this, and say that, and render my opinion of her poetry? Of course I say I will. She’s my sister.
Harry wants to have breakfast. He won’t talk about anything personal, he never does. But I will chat and cheer him. We will laugh. I will examine his fifteenth-year coin and praise his sobriety. Of course we will. He’s my brother.
Sandy wants to chat, unable once again to decide “Should I live in Hawaii where I’m so healthy? Should I live in Mt. Vernon next to the twenty-two grandchildren?” “Sereta,” I say, “Your family runs you ragged and your lungs close down. Hello?” Still, I spend an hour on the phone. Of course I do. She’s my sister.
They are just my siblings. There are my friends, my writing group, my husband and my step-daughter. Give me time, give me feedback, give me breakfast, give me tuition. Of course I say yes, yes, yes, yes.
My office chides, “Clean me.” The school calls, “Can you sub?” My doctor asks, “Are you coming?” I do, I go, I am.
In Sunday School I learned and (does this surprise anyone?) still can sing a child’s song:
Give said the little stream
Give, oh give, Give, oh give
Give said the little stream
As it hurried down the hill
I'm small I know but wherever I go
The grass grows greener still
Give said the little rain
Give, oh give,Give, oh give
Give said the little rain
As it fell upon the flowers
I'll raise their weary heads again
As it fell upon the flowers
If I turned off the phone and closed my computer, if I put away my calendar, if I said no and no and no, what would I do? I would drive to the Bear Lake cabin and sit on the porch, my legs on the rail, watching the sun rise like a red scarf over the lake in the eastern sky before me, watching the light and shadows play like children on those same hills in the evening. I would read books and magazines, and cook spinach lasagna and eat too much fruit, and write in my journal, and dust, and polish, and tidy my drawers, and alphabetize my spices, and arrange my closet by colors and soon, maybe even very soon, I would stand on the porch and yell into the silent air.
“Get me out of here.”
Of course…I’m me.
Friday, February 20, 2009
The San Francisco conference (very advanced! pefect for all of us ready or almost-ready to think about publishing) was wonderful - every day filled with optional workshops, lectures, seminars. I learned so much about the publishing business - enough to give pause to the most ambitious writer!
Process: First there is the writer - YOU; Then, if you so choose, the "book doctor" (free-lance editors) helps you get you book into shape for pitching to agents (they charge from $60-$125 hour!)
Then there are the agents to whom you "pitch" your book in various required ways (query letter or book proposal, face-to-face in "speed-dating, as at SFO), etc...
Then, IF an agent decides to represent a writer s/he is the one who tries to sell the idea of the book (and the book) to an editor.
Then, IF the editor likes the book s/he tries to sell it to the publisher. Once the book is purchased it takes about 18-24 months to get it to market.
And THEN? Distribution and promotion. 90% of the time it's the author's job to sell it! This means an author should try to have (and "pitch") a "platform" (some agnets and editors want this in the "pitch": a blog, a website, an e-mail list, an "in" to interviews and book reviews, an audience in mind, contacts, etc.
The whole process seems both exciting and daunting!
At the SFO "speed-dating agents" (three minutes each with however many editors you can get to - I stood in line and made it to three in the alloted hour; most writers made it to four), two agents ask me to send them a book proposal and/or sample chapters (somehting which happens at these conferences, but the agent/agency may still not like the book and may turn the writer down, which happens much of the time).
At the "Ask A Pro" (at which nine writers sat at a table with Editors and had 5 minutes each to talk to an Editor, and then got up and stood in line for another table) one editor asked me to send her the whole manuscript without an agent first. So I count the conference a success on any level.
Still, I am having second thoughts - I am not sure the book is in the shape it should be in before I send it anywhere, and I'm not sure I have the time to finish it up to my satisfaction before I go to Korea for three weeks Mar. 3. I am in the process now of thinking and editing and deciding what to do. I don't want to miss these opportunities, but I don't want to blow them either. My advice:
My advice: Memoirists, poetry, and fiction: Have your book done, complete, ready to send before you meet with agents/editors. Nonfiction: Have several chapters completed to attach to book proposals.
Agency websites I found particularly helpful: Larsen-Pomada Agency; Katharine Sands Agency; Ted Weinstein Agency; Nathan Bransford Agency - lots of info about pitching, query letters, book proposals, etc.
querytracker.com is where I am researching agents and keeping track of queries - good site!
Books by Micahel Larsen and Katharine Sands.
Self-publishing: I also learned about, and am highly attracted to, self-publishing on the web. (This would be a start for you, too!) This process is no longer the old "vanity press" method of paying someone to publsih your work with limited distribution. Some authors publish and print a run and then help to sell their own in-hand books. Others "print-on-demand." so that the book is printed when it is sold. The author controls everything! Agents and publishers scour these book sites and when a book has sold 500 or more they might decide to convert these books to publishing house books for wider distribution - an excellent way for a first time author to start. Reputable places work with authors to self-publish - Amazon, for example, sells 25% of the books sold in this country, and have a highly respected self-publishing arm. And iiuniverse, among others.
For $10 + I purchased my domain url - katharineenglish.com (you should go to GoDaddy.com and purchase your own name so no one else gets it), and I am going to learn how to set up a website for my writing.
Hope this information is useful to some of you...
Process: First there is the writer - YOU; Then, if you so choose, the "book doctor" (free-lance editors) helps you get you book into shape for pitching to agents (they charge from $60-$125 hour!)
Then there are the agents to whom you "pitch" your book in various required ways (query letter or book proposal, face-to-face in "speed-dating, as at SFO), etc...
Then, IF an agent decides to represent a writer s/he is the one who tries to sell the idea of the book (and the book) to an editor.
Then, IF the editor likes the book s/he tries to sell it to the publisher. Once the book is purchased it takes about 18-24 months to get it to market.
And THEN? Distribution and promotion. 90% of the time it's the author's job to sell it! This means an author should try to have (and "pitch") a "platform" (some agnets and editors want this in the "pitch": a blog, a website, an e-mail list, an "in" to interviews and book reviews, an audience in mind, contacts, etc.
The whole process seems both exciting and daunting!
At the SFO "speed-dating agents" (three minutes each with however many editors you can get to - I stood in line and made it to three in the alloted hour; most writers made it to four), two agents ask me to send them a book proposal and/or sample chapters (somehting which happens at these conferences, but the agent/agency may still not like the book and may turn the writer down, which happens much of the time).
At the "Ask A Pro" (at which nine writers sat at a table with Editors and had 5 minutes each to talk to an Editor, and then got up and stood in line for another table) one editor asked me to send her the whole manuscript without an agent first. So I count the conference a success on any level.
Still, I am having second thoughts - I am not sure the book is in the shape it should be in before I send it anywhere, and I'm not sure I have the time to finish it up to my satisfaction before I go to Korea for three weeks Mar. 3. I am in the process now of thinking and editing and deciding what to do. I don't want to miss these opportunities, but I don't want to blow them either. My advice:
My advice: Memoirists, poetry, and fiction: Have your book done, complete, ready to send before you meet with agents/editors. Nonfiction: Have several chapters completed to attach to book proposals.
Agency websites I found particularly helpful: Larsen-Pomada Agency; Katharine Sands Agency; Ted Weinstein Agency; Nathan Bransford Agency - lots of info about pitching, query letters, book proposals, etc.
querytracker.com is where I am researching agents and keeping track of queries - good site!
Books by Micahel Larsen and Katharine Sands.
Self-publishing: I also learned about, and am highly attracted to, self-publishing on the web. (This would be a start for you, too!) This process is no longer the old "vanity press" method of paying someone to publsih your work with limited distribution. Some authors publish and print a run and then help to sell their own in-hand books. Others "print-on-demand." so that the book is printed when it is sold. The author controls everything! Agents and publishers scour these book sites and when a book has sold 500 or more they might decide to convert these books to publishing house books for wider distribution - an excellent way for a first time author to start. Reputable places work with authors to self-publish - Amazon, for example, sells 25% of the books sold in this country, and have a highly respected self-publishing arm. And iiuniverse, among others.
For $10 + I purchased my domain url - katharineenglish.com (you should go to GoDaddy.com and purchase your own name so no one else gets it), and I am going to learn how to set up a website for my writing.
Hope this information is useful to some of you...
Climbing the Vine to Getting Published
February 20, 2009
Nearly nine months since I posted. And why? Because after graduation I gave up the writing I went to graduate school to learn to do! My "completed" manuscript - Salvation - A Judge's Memoir of a Mormon Childhood - sat unopened in my studio, while I substitute taught any subject I was called for, cooked pedestrian meals, traveled toour little cabin at Bear lake, read literature and trash, and basically let the spiders nest and the dust motes float in my studio.
Courage returned! And I have just returned from the 2009 San Francisco Writers Conference, which was chock full of informative, companionable attendees, and gracious agents and editors.
Have you dreams of publishing your book? Fiction, nonfiction, memoir, short stories, essays, poems? Take a breath, gird the old loins, and set your sights on that great beanstalk to the stars - the Publishing Vine. Of course, there are climbers who skip a branch and leap up; there are writers who catapult or reach up on stilts; but most writers climb up hand over hand, foot over foot, eyeing the route, testing the weight, gripping the branch for its strength.
I will post what I learned in "More About..."
Nearly nine months since I posted. And why? Because after graduation I gave up the writing I went to graduate school to learn to do! My "completed" manuscript - Salvation - A Judge's Memoir of a Mormon Childhood - sat unopened in my studio, while I substitute taught any subject I was called for, cooked pedestrian meals, traveled toour little cabin at Bear lake, read literature and trash, and basically let the spiders nest and the dust motes float in my studio.
Courage returned! And I have just returned from the 2009 San Francisco Writers Conference, which was chock full of informative, companionable attendees, and gracious agents and editors.
Have you dreams of publishing your book? Fiction, nonfiction, memoir, short stories, essays, poems? Take a breath, gird the old loins, and set your sights on that great beanstalk to the stars - the Publishing Vine. Of course, there are climbers who skip a branch and leap up; there are writers who catapult or reach up on stilts; but most writers climb up hand over hand, foot over foot, eyeing the route, testing the weight, gripping the branch for its strength.
I will post what I learned in "More About..."
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Graduation and Ironing
July 10, 2008
On July 13 I graduate with my Matster's (or Mistress's) Degree in Creative Writing from Goddard College. All Hail! (And all Hell...although not all Hell, just sometimes, as all writers can surmise!)
At Goddard, the graduates present a public reading, each selecting an excerpt from the Thesis s/he wrote - in my case, a book-length memoir: Salvation: A Judge's Memoir of a Mormon Childhood.
Although it has little obvious connectiion to judging or to Mormonism, I selected a part of a chapter - "Ironing," which becomes relvant in light of the whole memoir. Here it is.
(As an exercise, writers might try to create a character by a piece on "How To..." For example, the selection below creates a father and daughter by descriving the task of ironing...)
Ironing
An excerpt from the memoir, Salvation
Katharine English
I turned twelve and established Kathy’s Klassy Ironing Service, thirty-five cents an hour. Half my earnings went to Mom for “food and shelter." In my rickety red wagon, I pulled the neatly pressed and folded garments, piled tidily in a plastic clothes basket, a cardboard box, or the plastic bags my customers used to hold the clothes. Not just clothes: sometimes there were cloth napkins or thin pillowcases, handkerchiefs, and ties — even rags. The shirts and dresses hung on a pole rigged to the wagon, and the wheels spun frantically as I traveled from house to house, first up toward Federal Heights where the richer families lived then further down the Avenues, sometimes into the west side where the colored people and Mexicans sat on the porches and yelled “Whitey!” and “Hey, Sis” at me.
The neighborhood was poor, but there were plenty of customers and so business thrived. One of my regulars was Mabel Jensen, five houses up across First Avenue. She had five children, all less than ten years old, and no husband, so she gave me a lot to do. The clothes were thin-threaded and bare, requiring careful ironing. Some people in Salt Lake City were disapproving about single mothers, but I never held that against her. My mom was divorced, too.
Daddy had been gone four years now. He left suddenly, I didn't know why, after an awful fight with Mom the day before. Standing in the hallway with his suitcase in his hand, he said goodbye. Wrapped around his suitcase, holding it shut, was the belt he used to strap me with when I misbehaved. I sat on the floor and wouldn’t look at him, just ran my fingers over the rough, frayed leather. I felt lost, dead really. His face came close to mine; his aftershave lotion was sweet and spicy. When he tried to hug me, Mom screamed, "Get out! Don't you touch her.” So he left. Things got worse for us.
Sometimes Mabel's basket is filled with dirty clothes, so I have to wash them before I can iron them. I didn’t mind because I got kind of sick of the smell of ironing dirty clothes. They put out a sour, acrid smell, or they were sweet, like rotting fruit. I enjoyed turning her basket of dirty, smelly, disheveled clothes into neatly pressed, fresh-smelling little girls’ dresses, little boys’ summer shirts, even sheets sometimes, but only hers — the doubles.
One week, I found a man’s long-sleeved white shirt in Mabel’s basket. Surprised, I pulled it out and held it up to the light. Sunlight shone through the cloth. I pressed the cool fabric, soft as a breeze, to my cheek. It was linen! The shirt was tightly woven; small, whalebone buttons were sewn with strong silk thread. The seams were double-lock-stitched, holding the pieces firmly together. The collar ended in fine V’s above the collarbone. Such a shirt!
Daddy had several such shirts, which he wore only to Court, the office, and fancy parties. He was the most handsome of all the lawyers in his firm. Once he took me to a fancy dinner and introduced me as his “darling Kathy.” Men bent over and shook my hand. Wives mussed up my hair with a pat.
I turned the shirt over in my hands, explored it closely, and lifted the sleeves to peer at the underarms. Not a single stain on any inch of the shirt, even under the arms! Usually a man’s shirt smelled faintly sweet when the hot iron pressed the old, embedded perspiration, yet this shirt smelled fresh and white as new snow, like the kind Daddy took me to sled on at Park City. I imagined sliding down it, burying my face and feeling the cold flakes on my cheeks.
Daddy hardly sweated at all, even at Saltair, where we would wrestle or play ball on the beach of the Great Salt Lake in the hot sun at summer picnics. As he mowed the lawn, I walked behind him, raking up the grass. No sweat then, either. Daddy had very little hair under his arms or on his chest. He would say, “Beware of men who have too much hair on their chests — they are half wolf!” When I noticed hair coming in under my arms, and on the special hill by my cave, I pored over the Childcraft to read about wolves, afraid I might be one.
I held, and then stroked, Mabel’s man’s luxurious shirt, closed my eyes in its silky calm, and then kissed it. Kissing a shirt. It felt right. Tasting the angel hair on the threads, my tongue tingled with pleasure. I wrapped the arms of the shirt around my neck, pressed the broad front of it tight to my chest, and held one sleeve out in my hand. Then I danced with the shirt. Daddy and I played records and danced fandangos and fox trots; sometimes we went wild like Bolero. Don’t think I didn’t know what this dancing with the shirt was all about. It felt fine to dance with the shirt.
It took me a whole wondrous hour to iron the shirt. A shirt like that must be ironed in a particular way. Here’s how it is done:
Spread a clean towel on the kitchen table and place the shirt on the towel, arms straight down to each side. Boil water, and then cool it in a bowl with ice made from boiled water. Sprinkle this clean water generously over the shirt, on the neck, the chest, and down the arms. Spray the shirt with starch that smells like overripe cherries. Spray heavier at the collar and on the buttonholes. The collar adorns the neck and calls attention to the face, so it must present the close-cropped beard, the angular jowls, the ski-sloped nose. Black eyes are nicely set off by the stiff, bold collar. As for the buttonholes, they hold the entire thing together.
Now, fold both sleeves in over the chest. Then fold the shirt in half, lengthwise, arms inside. Smooth this rectangle down with your hands, stroking it until it is free of wrinkles. Now, roll it up from the bottom to the top in a tight little tube, damp between your hands. This wets the shirt all over and prepares it for the heat of the iron. Squeeze the tube lightly in your hands, squeeze and release, squeeze and release, to press the damp into itself. The soft linen peeks up between your fingers. You will like the feel of these ironing tubes, firm but pliable, safe, like grabbing your pillow at night during a nightmare, when you hang on and escape your dream.
This man's shirt was particularly well-rolled. Holding it to my cheek, I felt the moistness and smelled its yeasty warmth, sparkling and pure. For a while, I sat with the tube in my lap, staring out the window at the helmeted peaks of the Wasatch Mountains. These were the stable father giants guarding the mountain mothers, who were all shoulders and sloping hips. Their foothill children that sleep and play beneath them. Daddy told me these Rocky Mountains were millions of years old and that they would never die. I longed for something.
He loved linen. As a child I began by ironing small items, but, for the longest time, Mom forbade me to do the shirts, afraid I would burn them. Linen is a dangerous cloth, she said. And it is. Easy to scorch, it must be ironed at just the right temperature, which I became expert at finding. Daddy used to tell me, “Little Miss, you should be a judge. You have a fine judicial temperature, not too hot, not too cold. And you're so good at irony.” He chuckled and winked. I clapped my cheeks and curled my toes.
Linen shirts must be sprinkled and stretched out just enough that the iron glides over the threads, slipping back and forth with just the right amount of heat to leave the texture smooth and alive, almost glossy with the pleasure of the press. Too hot is too dry, and the shirt will be lost in the blistering heat of it all. Daddy said love is like that, too. Mom just waved her hands in the air — “You fill that girl’s head.”
Once you begin, you start with the yoke, hardest to reach, sturdy and supportive. If you look closely, you will see that the yoke holds the shirt together, attaching the collar, sleeves, back, and front. It is double-layered for strength, and the two pieces don’t always match perfectly, so the iron wants to wrinkle it, which you must resist with confidence. Your fingers must pull as you iron, shaping it to conform to the needs of the shirt.
Now, lay the sleeve down on the board. Straighten it so the edge of the seam under the arm is pressed toward the back of the shirt. “Men look forward, women press back," Mom taught me to remember, her smile flat because she took a drag on her cigarette. “When you iron the sleeve, make a pure, crisp crease from shoulder to cuff, like a straight line to God.”
Daddy pooh-poohed Mom’s ideas of God and Heaven. He was a Baptist, not a Mormon like we were. When I came home on Sundays, he would lift me up into his lap and teach me Baptist hymns, which we sang together before bedtime. "God of Earth and Outer Space" was my favorite, though Mom hated it. To irritate Mom, he would break into "Jesus showed his nail-scarred hands." She would hiss, “Henry, sing something pleasant!" Daddy would whisper to me, "Well, He did, didn't He?" To please Mom, he’d break into the Baptist "I Stand Amazed." But she would counter with the Mormon “I Stand All Amazed,” and I’d get lost in the ever-loudening musical chaos.
Now, I wasn’t sure about the man who belonged to the shirt I was ironing, but Daddy was the kind of man who liked to get out of his suit coat as soon as possible. For example, when he got home from work he was so happy to see me and so eager to play catch with the mitt and ball, he might not have hung up his jacket. He just tossed it over the back of the chair, or left it in a lump on the floor. “Henry,” Mom yelled, “who do you think I am, your servant?” but we’d be long gone to the backyard. At dusk, he carried me in on his back, my giggles buried in the earthy smell of his starched shirt collar. When I lifted my head in a bounce, my nose filled with the Old Spice scent of his hair.
I imagine that Mabel’s man is a professional, much like Daddy, a man who goes to his office meeting and sys, “Gentlemen, why don’t we get comfortable?” He takes off his coat and the others followed his lead. As he turns to write something on the chalkboard, the junior partners look at each other and cluck their approval of his tidy, wrinkle-free, tuck-perfect shirt. Later, he thanks me for the starchy attention I gave to the back tuck from yoke to seam. “Why, this tuck is exactly one-inch wide the entire length, my girl, and so stiff!” he praises. I do not reveal that I have cut a cardboard strip one-inch wide and wrapped it in the tuck before I imprisoned the folds beneath the hot, waiting iron.
There you have it. Almost done. Easy enough you’d think. But for me, it was a sorrowful thing. My father took all his white shirts with him when he left. I searched the house in vain for one. To wear, to hold, to keep under my pillow.
The hardest part of ironing this shirt was moving the iron back and forth over the front panels, deftly slipping between the whalebone buttons. I remembered how I had stroked my father’s chest in the same rhythmic way as I lay beside him, where I had rested my cheek and heard his heart beat so strong and steady, so fast sometimes. I loved his smooth chest, the chest upon which my own had rested all those times, his arms around me, holding me fitfully, tightly, or peacefully, so I could sleep. “Lullaby and goodnight,” he sang, “with roses bedight.” As Daddy crooned, I dreamt about roses quietly dying.
Daddy also taught me about my own “little buttons,” as he called them, “these two on the mountains, and this special one down in the cave.” He taught me this one night when Mom stormed out of the bedroom, when he came and carried me from my bed to his, when he told me that I was special. When he promised he would never leave me.
By the time I was thirteen, just about a woman, I knew that good things don't last. Fathers didn't stay with you, and there was nothing to do about the sorrow. But right then there was a shirt to iron. I was careful not to cry. Tears are not pure; they stain.
Carefully, lovingly, I finished up the long-sleeved shirt that belonged to Mabel Jensen’s new man. The collar was stately and sturdy, a firm outline of manliness and stability. The body flowed down from the collar, gleaming, smooth, and reliable. The shirt was presented elegantly on the hanger.
But I confess. Before I hung it up, I put it on. I carefully climbed into it, let it enfold me, let the soft, compromising linen wrap me in its warmth, its sweetness, its cleanliness. Looking in the mirror, I was amazed to see that I looked beautiful. My body was bathed in the perfect shirt.
That evening, I slept with the ironed shirt hanging on my bedpost. It rained in the night, so the next morning, after breakfast, I scotch-taped four long sheets of waxed paper together and laid the ironed shirt down on them, the arms smoothed to the sides. Then I taped four more sheets together and completely covered up the shirt. It was fully protected. Only the curved handle of the hanger poked out.
As I loaded the basket of clothes into my red wagon, I felt like I was stuffed up with soggy laundry, piles of it in my chest, clogging my neck, behind my nose. Gloom hung on me and dripped tears. I fixed the shirt on the bar, pulling the waxed paper covering taut, centering the shirt on the pole, making sure it wouldn't fall to the ground, and set off for Mabel Jensen’s house. Despite the drizzling rain, I dawdled, tapping softly in shallow puddles, looking for cross plugs and cracks in the sidewalks, watching a worm in the grass, measuring the steps to Mabel’s house, taking smaller steps to make the measure longer.
“Honey lamb,” Daddy said the day he left, “the sun is always in the sky.” Sometimes I'm not sure about that anymore. But maybe Mabel would introduce me to her new fellow. Maybe he was living there, a new daddy to the children. Maybe I could iron his shirt again, maybe even more shirts. Of course! I was happy and excited now.
I raced hopefully up her steps, holding the shirt high. Randy lugged the basket in and called out, “Ma, Kathy's here.” He turned to me, eyes down. “Drunk,” he muttered then went out the front door, slamming it.
“Don’t slam the fucking door,” Mabel said as she came in from the kitchen, running her hand through her hair. “Hi, Kathy.” She fumbled through her purse. Things fell out — lipstick, a glass case, tissue. “Well, I don’t know where I put the damn wallet,” she said, “I’ll have to pay you later, Okay?”
“I guess so,” I said. “Shall I just keep the shirt until then?” I couldn’t leave it with her. She’d wrinkle it. She’d spill on it.
“What shirt?” she snapped.
“This one. This man’s shirt.” I held it out to her, knowing I must give it away.
She came straight at me, grabbed at the shirt, tore at the waxed paper. The shirt fell from my hands to the floor. I gasped, reached for it. She pushed me away, scooped it up.
“Where the Hell did you get this?” she yelled.
“It was in the ironing basket.” The stuffing in my chest was on fire. My eyes burned.
She gathered the shirt — arms, chest, back, neck — and twisted it like a rope, grunting, her voice scraping in a low scowl. “You told anyone about this?” she accused.
“No. Why would I tell anyone? What’s the matter?”
“Well, don’t you tell anyone, you hear? This was all a mistake.”
“Yes, ma’am. I mean no, ma’am.”
Her foot slipped on her lipstick. She bent down, picked it up, fumbled the lid off, and slashed the shirt until it was streaked in red gashes. Spent, she sat down, and her head fell to her arms.
She was quiet for a moment. I couldn't move.
She lifted her head. “Get out. You wait ’til tomorrow. I’ll pay you then.”
“You don’t have to pay me,” I said and ran from the house.
I didn’t go back for my money. After all, it was just a shirt.
Copyright: Katharine English 2008
On July 13 I graduate with my Matster's (or Mistress's) Degree in Creative Writing from Goddard College. All Hail! (And all Hell...although not all Hell, just sometimes, as all writers can surmise!)
At Goddard, the graduates present a public reading, each selecting an excerpt from the Thesis s/he wrote - in my case, a book-length memoir: Salvation: A Judge's Memoir of a Mormon Childhood.
Although it has little obvious connectiion to judging or to Mormonism, I selected a part of a chapter - "Ironing," which becomes relvant in light of the whole memoir. Here it is.
(As an exercise, writers might try to create a character by a piece on "How To..." For example, the selection below creates a father and daughter by descriving the task of ironing...)
Ironing
An excerpt from the memoir, Salvation
Katharine English
I turned twelve and established Kathy’s Klassy Ironing Service, thirty-five cents an hour. Half my earnings went to Mom for “food and shelter." In my rickety red wagon, I pulled the neatly pressed and folded garments, piled tidily in a plastic clothes basket, a cardboard box, or the plastic bags my customers used to hold the clothes. Not just clothes: sometimes there were cloth napkins or thin pillowcases, handkerchiefs, and ties — even rags. The shirts and dresses hung on a pole rigged to the wagon, and the wheels spun frantically as I traveled from house to house, first up toward Federal Heights where the richer families lived then further down the Avenues, sometimes into the west side where the colored people and Mexicans sat on the porches and yelled “Whitey!” and “Hey, Sis” at me.
The neighborhood was poor, but there were plenty of customers and so business thrived. One of my regulars was Mabel Jensen, five houses up across First Avenue. She had five children, all less than ten years old, and no husband, so she gave me a lot to do. The clothes were thin-threaded and bare, requiring careful ironing. Some people in Salt Lake City were disapproving about single mothers, but I never held that against her. My mom was divorced, too.
Daddy had been gone four years now. He left suddenly, I didn't know why, after an awful fight with Mom the day before. Standing in the hallway with his suitcase in his hand, he said goodbye. Wrapped around his suitcase, holding it shut, was the belt he used to strap me with when I misbehaved. I sat on the floor and wouldn’t look at him, just ran my fingers over the rough, frayed leather. I felt lost, dead really. His face came close to mine; his aftershave lotion was sweet and spicy. When he tried to hug me, Mom screamed, "Get out! Don't you touch her.” So he left. Things got worse for us.
Sometimes Mabel's basket is filled with dirty clothes, so I have to wash them before I can iron them. I didn’t mind because I got kind of sick of the smell of ironing dirty clothes. They put out a sour, acrid smell, or they were sweet, like rotting fruit. I enjoyed turning her basket of dirty, smelly, disheveled clothes into neatly pressed, fresh-smelling little girls’ dresses, little boys’ summer shirts, even sheets sometimes, but only hers — the doubles.
One week, I found a man’s long-sleeved white shirt in Mabel’s basket. Surprised, I pulled it out and held it up to the light. Sunlight shone through the cloth. I pressed the cool fabric, soft as a breeze, to my cheek. It was linen! The shirt was tightly woven; small, whalebone buttons were sewn with strong silk thread. The seams were double-lock-stitched, holding the pieces firmly together. The collar ended in fine V’s above the collarbone. Such a shirt!
Daddy had several such shirts, which he wore only to Court, the office, and fancy parties. He was the most handsome of all the lawyers in his firm. Once he took me to a fancy dinner and introduced me as his “darling Kathy.” Men bent over and shook my hand. Wives mussed up my hair with a pat.
I turned the shirt over in my hands, explored it closely, and lifted the sleeves to peer at the underarms. Not a single stain on any inch of the shirt, even under the arms! Usually a man’s shirt smelled faintly sweet when the hot iron pressed the old, embedded perspiration, yet this shirt smelled fresh and white as new snow, like the kind Daddy took me to sled on at Park City. I imagined sliding down it, burying my face and feeling the cold flakes on my cheeks.
Daddy hardly sweated at all, even at Saltair, where we would wrestle or play ball on the beach of the Great Salt Lake in the hot sun at summer picnics. As he mowed the lawn, I walked behind him, raking up the grass. No sweat then, either. Daddy had very little hair under his arms or on his chest. He would say, “Beware of men who have too much hair on their chests — they are half wolf!” When I noticed hair coming in under my arms, and on the special hill by my cave, I pored over the Childcraft to read about wolves, afraid I might be one.
I held, and then stroked, Mabel’s man’s luxurious shirt, closed my eyes in its silky calm, and then kissed it. Kissing a shirt. It felt right. Tasting the angel hair on the threads, my tongue tingled with pleasure. I wrapped the arms of the shirt around my neck, pressed the broad front of it tight to my chest, and held one sleeve out in my hand. Then I danced with the shirt. Daddy and I played records and danced fandangos and fox trots; sometimes we went wild like Bolero. Don’t think I didn’t know what this dancing with the shirt was all about. It felt fine to dance with the shirt.
It took me a whole wondrous hour to iron the shirt. A shirt like that must be ironed in a particular way. Here’s how it is done:
Spread a clean towel on the kitchen table and place the shirt on the towel, arms straight down to each side. Boil water, and then cool it in a bowl with ice made from boiled water. Sprinkle this clean water generously over the shirt, on the neck, the chest, and down the arms. Spray the shirt with starch that smells like overripe cherries. Spray heavier at the collar and on the buttonholes. The collar adorns the neck and calls attention to the face, so it must present the close-cropped beard, the angular jowls, the ski-sloped nose. Black eyes are nicely set off by the stiff, bold collar. As for the buttonholes, they hold the entire thing together.
Now, fold both sleeves in over the chest. Then fold the shirt in half, lengthwise, arms inside. Smooth this rectangle down with your hands, stroking it until it is free of wrinkles. Now, roll it up from the bottom to the top in a tight little tube, damp between your hands. This wets the shirt all over and prepares it for the heat of the iron. Squeeze the tube lightly in your hands, squeeze and release, squeeze and release, to press the damp into itself. The soft linen peeks up between your fingers. You will like the feel of these ironing tubes, firm but pliable, safe, like grabbing your pillow at night during a nightmare, when you hang on and escape your dream.
This man's shirt was particularly well-rolled. Holding it to my cheek, I felt the moistness and smelled its yeasty warmth, sparkling and pure. For a while, I sat with the tube in my lap, staring out the window at the helmeted peaks of the Wasatch Mountains. These were the stable father giants guarding the mountain mothers, who were all shoulders and sloping hips. Their foothill children that sleep and play beneath them. Daddy told me these Rocky Mountains were millions of years old and that they would never die. I longed for something.
He loved linen. As a child I began by ironing small items, but, for the longest time, Mom forbade me to do the shirts, afraid I would burn them. Linen is a dangerous cloth, she said. And it is. Easy to scorch, it must be ironed at just the right temperature, which I became expert at finding. Daddy used to tell me, “Little Miss, you should be a judge. You have a fine judicial temperature, not too hot, not too cold. And you're so good at irony.” He chuckled and winked. I clapped my cheeks and curled my toes.
Linen shirts must be sprinkled and stretched out just enough that the iron glides over the threads, slipping back and forth with just the right amount of heat to leave the texture smooth and alive, almost glossy with the pleasure of the press. Too hot is too dry, and the shirt will be lost in the blistering heat of it all. Daddy said love is like that, too. Mom just waved her hands in the air — “You fill that girl’s head.”
Once you begin, you start with the yoke, hardest to reach, sturdy and supportive. If you look closely, you will see that the yoke holds the shirt together, attaching the collar, sleeves, back, and front. It is double-layered for strength, and the two pieces don’t always match perfectly, so the iron wants to wrinkle it, which you must resist with confidence. Your fingers must pull as you iron, shaping it to conform to the needs of the shirt.
Now, lay the sleeve down on the board. Straighten it so the edge of the seam under the arm is pressed toward the back of the shirt. “Men look forward, women press back," Mom taught me to remember, her smile flat because she took a drag on her cigarette. “When you iron the sleeve, make a pure, crisp crease from shoulder to cuff, like a straight line to God.”
Daddy pooh-poohed Mom’s ideas of God and Heaven. He was a Baptist, not a Mormon like we were. When I came home on Sundays, he would lift me up into his lap and teach me Baptist hymns, which we sang together before bedtime. "God of Earth and Outer Space" was my favorite, though Mom hated it. To irritate Mom, he would break into "Jesus showed his nail-scarred hands." She would hiss, “Henry, sing something pleasant!" Daddy would whisper to me, "Well, He did, didn't He?" To please Mom, he’d break into the Baptist "I Stand Amazed." But she would counter with the Mormon “I Stand All Amazed,” and I’d get lost in the ever-loudening musical chaos.
Now, I wasn’t sure about the man who belonged to the shirt I was ironing, but Daddy was the kind of man who liked to get out of his suit coat as soon as possible. For example, when he got home from work he was so happy to see me and so eager to play catch with the mitt and ball, he might not have hung up his jacket. He just tossed it over the back of the chair, or left it in a lump on the floor. “Henry,” Mom yelled, “who do you think I am, your servant?” but we’d be long gone to the backyard. At dusk, he carried me in on his back, my giggles buried in the earthy smell of his starched shirt collar. When I lifted my head in a bounce, my nose filled with the Old Spice scent of his hair.
I imagine that Mabel’s man is a professional, much like Daddy, a man who goes to his office meeting and sys, “Gentlemen, why don’t we get comfortable?” He takes off his coat and the others followed his lead. As he turns to write something on the chalkboard, the junior partners look at each other and cluck their approval of his tidy, wrinkle-free, tuck-perfect shirt. Later, he thanks me for the starchy attention I gave to the back tuck from yoke to seam. “Why, this tuck is exactly one-inch wide the entire length, my girl, and so stiff!” he praises. I do not reveal that I have cut a cardboard strip one-inch wide and wrapped it in the tuck before I imprisoned the folds beneath the hot, waiting iron.
There you have it. Almost done. Easy enough you’d think. But for me, it was a sorrowful thing. My father took all his white shirts with him when he left. I searched the house in vain for one. To wear, to hold, to keep under my pillow.
The hardest part of ironing this shirt was moving the iron back and forth over the front panels, deftly slipping between the whalebone buttons. I remembered how I had stroked my father’s chest in the same rhythmic way as I lay beside him, where I had rested my cheek and heard his heart beat so strong and steady, so fast sometimes. I loved his smooth chest, the chest upon which my own had rested all those times, his arms around me, holding me fitfully, tightly, or peacefully, so I could sleep. “Lullaby and goodnight,” he sang, “with roses bedight.” As Daddy crooned, I dreamt about roses quietly dying.
Daddy also taught me about my own “little buttons,” as he called them, “these two on the mountains, and this special one down in the cave.” He taught me this one night when Mom stormed out of the bedroom, when he came and carried me from my bed to his, when he told me that I was special. When he promised he would never leave me.
By the time I was thirteen, just about a woman, I knew that good things don't last. Fathers didn't stay with you, and there was nothing to do about the sorrow. But right then there was a shirt to iron. I was careful not to cry. Tears are not pure; they stain.
Carefully, lovingly, I finished up the long-sleeved shirt that belonged to Mabel Jensen’s new man. The collar was stately and sturdy, a firm outline of manliness and stability. The body flowed down from the collar, gleaming, smooth, and reliable. The shirt was presented elegantly on the hanger.
But I confess. Before I hung it up, I put it on. I carefully climbed into it, let it enfold me, let the soft, compromising linen wrap me in its warmth, its sweetness, its cleanliness. Looking in the mirror, I was amazed to see that I looked beautiful. My body was bathed in the perfect shirt.
That evening, I slept with the ironed shirt hanging on my bedpost. It rained in the night, so the next morning, after breakfast, I scotch-taped four long sheets of waxed paper together and laid the ironed shirt down on them, the arms smoothed to the sides. Then I taped four more sheets together and completely covered up the shirt. It was fully protected. Only the curved handle of the hanger poked out.
As I loaded the basket of clothes into my red wagon, I felt like I was stuffed up with soggy laundry, piles of it in my chest, clogging my neck, behind my nose. Gloom hung on me and dripped tears. I fixed the shirt on the bar, pulling the waxed paper covering taut, centering the shirt on the pole, making sure it wouldn't fall to the ground, and set off for Mabel Jensen’s house. Despite the drizzling rain, I dawdled, tapping softly in shallow puddles, looking for cross plugs and cracks in the sidewalks, watching a worm in the grass, measuring the steps to Mabel’s house, taking smaller steps to make the measure longer.
“Honey lamb,” Daddy said the day he left, “the sun is always in the sky.” Sometimes I'm not sure about that anymore. But maybe Mabel would introduce me to her new fellow. Maybe he was living there, a new daddy to the children. Maybe I could iron his shirt again, maybe even more shirts. Of course! I was happy and excited now.
I raced hopefully up her steps, holding the shirt high. Randy lugged the basket in and called out, “Ma, Kathy's here.” He turned to me, eyes down. “Drunk,” he muttered then went out the front door, slamming it.
“Don’t slam the fucking door,” Mabel said as she came in from the kitchen, running her hand through her hair. “Hi, Kathy.” She fumbled through her purse. Things fell out — lipstick, a glass case, tissue. “Well, I don’t know where I put the damn wallet,” she said, “I’ll have to pay you later, Okay?”
“I guess so,” I said. “Shall I just keep the shirt until then?” I couldn’t leave it with her. She’d wrinkle it. She’d spill on it.
“What shirt?” she snapped.
“This one. This man’s shirt.” I held it out to her, knowing I must give it away.
She came straight at me, grabbed at the shirt, tore at the waxed paper. The shirt fell from my hands to the floor. I gasped, reached for it. She pushed me away, scooped it up.
“Where the Hell did you get this?” she yelled.
“It was in the ironing basket.” The stuffing in my chest was on fire. My eyes burned.
She gathered the shirt — arms, chest, back, neck — and twisted it like a rope, grunting, her voice scraping in a low scowl. “You told anyone about this?” she accused.
“No. Why would I tell anyone? What’s the matter?”
“Well, don’t you tell anyone, you hear? This was all a mistake.”
“Yes, ma’am. I mean no, ma’am.”
Her foot slipped on her lipstick. She bent down, picked it up, fumbled the lid off, and slashed the shirt until it was streaked in red gashes. Spent, she sat down, and her head fell to her arms.
She was quiet for a moment. I couldn't move.
She lifted her head. “Get out. You wait ’til tomorrow. I’ll pay you then.”
“You don’t have to pay me,” I said and ran from the house.
I didn’t go back for my money. After all, it was just a shirt.
Copyright: Katharine English 2008
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
A Writer at Work
Unbelievable! A year has passsed. During which I have been writing furiously - to the end of which I will be graduating from Goddard College with an MFA in Creative Writing this July, 2008.
Every year, in Salt Lake City,UT, the Writers at Work Conference bursts into the valley and wraps its arms around writers from everywhere, hugging, nurturing, challenging, and inspiring them. This year was no different.
Abigail Thomas - who wrote the exquisite memoirs, Safekeeping and Three Dog Life - led the workshop I attended this year. She has recently published Thinkiing about Memoir, another gem. From this small jewel she assigned us a most fascinating exercise:
Take ten years of your life and compress them into two pages, using three-word sentences. Not one, not four - three-word sentences only.
Delighted, and stuggling, the workshop participants labored. Such a wealth of treasure emerged. You should try it, all of you writers out there. The precision with which words must be chosen truly hones your writing.
Here's my try:
I’m a judge. Honorable profession, that. “Ye all rise!” “Judge English presides.” “Please be seated.” My gavel bangs.
Who is sad? Who is oppressed? Who is angry? “Come before me.” I decide right. I decide wrong. I am wise. So they say.
How I began. Overachieving lawyer rose. Arrogance filled me. Success seemed inevitable. “Your client’s acquitted!” “Custody is won!” “Sentence is suspended!” “Praise to counsel!” I was unstoppable. I would judge! I was wise. So I thought.
How I continued. Day follows day. Squabbling parents divorce. Husbands fight wives. Wives fight husbands. He wants custody. She wants silver. She sabotages settlement. He hisses cruelties. Both are bull-headed. Their truths injure. Low is low. Sad is sad. Who am I? A stranger, ruling.
Year follows year. Abused children cry. Eyes like caves. Abusive parents deny. Parents beat children. Mothers drown daughters. Fathers shake sons. Cigarettes burn skins. Broken bones twist. Compassion is paramount. Prevention is paramount. Possibilities are paramount. Unravel the chaos. Unbatter the spirits. Unsettled, I rule.
Case follows case. Children smoke marijuana. Cocaine is king. Children are stealing. Adolescents are killing. Prison looms inescapably. Accusations are made. Blame is shifting. Everyone is frightened. I must rule. Can I calm? Can I choose? Can I commit? I’m the ruler.
Burden follows burden. Witnesses are called. Evidence alarms me. Arguments are given. Justice seems elusive. I must rule. Rule these families. Families are troubled. Trouble’s all around.
What happened then: The ghosts hovered. The nightmares stained. I questioned all.
There was Huong. The killer child. The axe fell. Hacked his aunt. Slaughtered his cousins. (Khmer Rouge appeared. Pol Pot haunted.) Blood was everywhere. Bodies were scattered. The limbs separated. The heads severed. Huong’s eyes disappeared.
Photographs were taken. I saw them.
Here came Sarah. Mute, she stared... Step-father raped her. Brutal force descended. His breath stank. Regrets were everywhere. Garments were scattered. Her legs separated. Lives were severed. Perpetrators eyes iced-over. Evidence was taken. I heard it.
Everywhere they appeared... The desperate parents. Poverty defeated them. Neglect smothered children. Feces were everywhere. Molding food scattered. Discouragement separated them. Their rights terminated. Children’s hearts broken. I felt them.
Pleas were pled. I answered them. I was wise.
But was I? Why am I? Who am I? Quitting called me. But I stayed. And I asked.
How it ended. I looked back. Back to birth. Birth to childhood. Childhood to adolescence. Where’s the answer? Why this work? Why this need? Why these children? Why these families? Should I stay? Should I go?
I went back. Returned to Utah. Sought out memories. My mother drank. She beat me. She taunted me. My father lied. He raped me. He abandoned me. My Church failed. It wasn’t true. It betrayed me. There, it’s said. Everything was chaos. Harm never left me. I wanted saving. Removal from harm. Those are answers.
I seek salvation. Not just mine. Save the families. Save the children. Save them all.
How it is. I remain Judge. No one rises. No gavel pounds. I sit quietly. I speak kindly. “Court’s in session. Welcome to all.” They are safe. May I rule. Be wise always.
I am them.
Here's another exercise for Abigail Thomas: "Write two pages. The first two sentences should start "I didn't ask for _____________. I asked for ________________."
Try it!
Every year, in Salt Lake City,UT, the Writers at Work Conference bursts into the valley and wraps its arms around writers from everywhere, hugging, nurturing, challenging, and inspiring them. This year was no different.
Abigail Thomas - who wrote the exquisite memoirs, Safekeeping and Three Dog Life - led the workshop I attended this year. She has recently published Thinkiing about Memoir, another gem. From this small jewel she assigned us a most fascinating exercise:
Take ten years of your life and compress them into two pages, using three-word sentences. Not one, not four - three-word sentences only.
Delighted, and stuggling, the workshop participants labored. Such a wealth of treasure emerged. You should try it, all of you writers out there. The precision with which words must be chosen truly hones your writing.
Here's my try:
I’m a judge. Honorable profession, that. “Ye all rise!” “Judge English presides.” “Please be seated.” My gavel bangs.
Who is sad? Who is oppressed? Who is angry? “Come before me.” I decide right. I decide wrong. I am wise. So they say.
How I began. Overachieving lawyer rose. Arrogance filled me. Success seemed inevitable. “Your client’s acquitted!” “Custody is won!” “Sentence is suspended!” “Praise to counsel!” I was unstoppable. I would judge! I was wise. So I thought.
How I continued. Day follows day. Squabbling parents divorce. Husbands fight wives. Wives fight husbands. He wants custody. She wants silver. She sabotages settlement. He hisses cruelties. Both are bull-headed. Their truths injure. Low is low. Sad is sad. Who am I? A stranger, ruling.
Year follows year. Abused children cry. Eyes like caves. Abusive parents deny. Parents beat children. Mothers drown daughters. Fathers shake sons. Cigarettes burn skins. Broken bones twist. Compassion is paramount. Prevention is paramount. Possibilities are paramount. Unravel the chaos. Unbatter the spirits. Unsettled, I rule.
Case follows case. Children smoke marijuana. Cocaine is king. Children are stealing. Adolescents are killing. Prison looms inescapably. Accusations are made. Blame is shifting. Everyone is frightened. I must rule. Can I calm? Can I choose? Can I commit? I’m the ruler.
Burden follows burden. Witnesses are called. Evidence alarms me. Arguments are given. Justice seems elusive. I must rule. Rule these families. Families are troubled. Trouble’s all around.
What happened then: The ghosts hovered. The nightmares stained. I questioned all.
There was Huong. The killer child. The axe fell. Hacked his aunt. Slaughtered his cousins. (Khmer Rouge appeared. Pol Pot haunted.) Blood was everywhere. Bodies were scattered. The limbs separated. The heads severed. Huong’s eyes disappeared.
Photographs were taken. I saw them.
Here came Sarah. Mute, she stared... Step-father raped her. Brutal force descended. His breath stank. Regrets were everywhere. Garments were scattered. Her legs separated. Lives were severed. Perpetrators eyes iced-over. Evidence was taken. I heard it.
Everywhere they appeared... The desperate parents. Poverty defeated them. Neglect smothered children. Feces were everywhere. Molding food scattered. Discouragement separated them. Their rights terminated. Children’s hearts broken. I felt them.
Pleas were pled. I answered them. I was wise.
But was I? Why am I? Who am I? Quitting called me. But I stayed. And I asked.
How it ended. I looked back. Back to birth. Birth to childhood. Childhood to adolescence. Where’s the answer? Why this work? Why this need? Why these children? Why these families? Should I stay? Should I go?
I went back. Returned to Utah. Sought out memories. My mother drank. She beat me. She taunted me. My father lied. He raped me. He abandoned me. My Church failed. It wasn’t true. It betrayed me. There, it’s said. Everything was chaos. Harm never left me. I wanted saving. Removal from harm. Those are answers.
I seek salvation. Not just mine. Save the families. Save the children. Save them all.
How it is. I remain Judge. No one rises. No gavel pounds. I sit quietly. I speak kindly. “Court’s in session. Welcome to all.” They are safe. May I rule. Be wise always.
I am them.
Here's another exercise for Abigail Thomas: "Write two pages. The first two sentences should start "I didn't ask for _____________. I asked for ________________."
Try it!
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