ninaherenorthere.com

The other day, construction workers for PG&E cut a coffin-sized hole in the concrete on the street that my desk faces. The sound was loud, like an electric saw to my skull. It was one of my last Tuesday mornings off. (I start working four days a week soon.) Nobody was home. I didn’t feel like going to a coffee shop. So, I moved my desk.

For the last two-and-a-half years my desk has sat in the same window pod in my room, a divot between the fireplace and the wall, well-suited to this end. When I first moved into the house, I lived in the smaller room next door, but I still wrote at this desk in what has become my room. The smaller room next door is now vacant.

Well, vacant is stretching it. The room is mostly my bicycle garage, housing two bikes, a couple of helmets, pumps and scattered gloves and locks. There are also a few empty boxes destined for the recylcing bin, a pile of linens and a comforter. The wood floor is partially covered by a $20 rug purchased at a thrift store because our downstairs neighbor alerted the landlord to the section of our lease that said 80% of the hardwood floors require rugs. (”Wait, you want us to cover a floor in a room that nobody uses?” - me to rental agency.)

The point is that the room, in terms of both size and contents, is basically a closet. The window faces a different street than the window by the desk in my room, and so last Tuesday, when PG&E started ripping up the road, I moved my desk and chair into the empty room.

For the last week, I’ve been writing in there, and it’s been wonderful. There’s something about closing the door to my room, walking one step and opening the door to another room that makes me feel like I’m going to the office. But I don’t want to make it a true office or invite my roommate to do the same. I like that my writing room is so empty that the sound of the door closing nearly echoes. I have no files, no books, no trash can, no printer, and no papers other than the ones I think I’ll need for that session. The walls are bare, painted some type of off-white, but they might as well be insane asylum white.

There is nothing to look at, think about, distract myself with when I’m in this barren room. It is the perfect spot to write.

About 6 months ago, I got involved with an adult literacy organization affiliated with the public library. It is a well-funded nonprofit, meaning the office is not a  linoleum-tiled janitor’s closet with turn of the millennium Macs. It is also means there’s lots of free stuff: food, books, training workshops. (There is even a monthly bookclub, for which all of the tutor/learner pairs receive free books and audio books if they want to participate.) But most importantly, it means that I can stomach the volunteer, do-good aspect of my participation because my “service” is kind of pampering.

When I met my guy (we’ll call him Jim), I wasn’t really sure what to expect. I started tutoring because somewhere in the back of my head, I wondered whether I might be interested in trading the ease of sitting in an ergonomic chair all day with my headphones on, casually writing a couple of error messages a day (as in: “please correct the address field below”) for a low-paying, energy-draining education job. Perhaps teaching ESL, or literacy. To adults, of course. After years of failed endeavors trying to work with youth, I realized I don’t like to babysit or stare at  zits or engage with my inner child.

I’m pretty sure I lucked out with Jim. He shows up every single Tuesday night on time, raring to go. He is happy, genetically or something. He owns a growing business, shuttling patients to dialysis appointments. He has been married for over thirty years. He is a partial season-ticket holder for Warriors games. He is over sixty, goes to the gym regularly, and could probably bench press me. He is close to his granddaugther and pays her money based on her grades ($100 for A’s $50 for B’s). He is totally and completely my kind of guy. 

Before I met Jim, I was told he’s an “advanced” learner. Jim has a high school degree and my uneducated guess is that he reads at an 8th grade level and writes at a 4th grade level. During one lesson, I tried to explain the sentence: capitalize the first word and end with a period. He told me that if we focused on the sentence, it would detract from the things he really cares about.

Jim loves to spell. Often when we spell words, he’ll say something like, “Really, that’s how you spell broccoli!” He is amazed to see words he uses all the time in print. He carries around an electronic dictionary, exactly like the one I have except his announces words in monotonous vibrations that pass for speech and he refers to it as a “computer” because he doesn’t use it for definitions. He uses it when he knows the first few letters of a word, which generates a list that he can choose from. Sometimes he cannot get the first few letters. Sometimes he guesses an “R” instead of a “D.” He doesn’t seem to get phonics; I’ve wondered if he hears the sounds at all or if he has just memorized all of the words he can spell. I can’t tell if he’s dyslexic or occasionally spells “on,” “N-O” because he is tired.

On our first day together, I asked what his “goals” were. I expected “big” goals, things we discussed in my training, like reading the mail, or advancing at a job, or getting a GED. He told me his goal was to be able to write down his thoughts. Maybe I made a disappointed face. “I can’t even spell thoughts,” he said.

He writes regularly in his journal, usually 3-4 times a week but sometimes 6-7. After three months, we wrote an email to one of his old tutors. The following week, he didn’t notice her reply in his inbox because of all the junk mail. (He always opts-in, not quite getting the junk factor.) I pointed out the email right before we left. He lit up, reading the email aloud straight through with a big ass grin on his face. Then he turned to me, “How does it feel to be the one to bring joy to my life?” All I did was point out that he’d received an email.

Once Jim started to write his thoughts, he wanted to express them to others, a feeling I more than relate to. We started to email his other tutor. He wrote to her that it was the beginning of their correspondence. Now when he writes in his journal, he sometimes writes a draft of an email he will type during our session. He eventually wants to be able (i.e. have the confidence and set aside the time) to email her from his home computer.

Sometimes we do basic computer stuff and I hardly feel like I’m tutoring. For a sixty-year old, he’s really good with the Internet. But sometimes he doesn’t remember where the URL goes, and to move the cursor around it seems to travel through an obstacle course first. We spent a half-hour one day registering his Starbucks card. He insisted on a userID like 12345 or 67891011. He refused to write it down. A month later, we spent ten minutes trying to remember it, but couldn’t. He had to re-enter all of the information again. It’s one of the few lessons I feel has sunk in: write down your userID.

This Tuesday, he told me he was surprised that I let him do everything himself: write, spell, forget his userID; other tutors grabbed the keyboard or the pen. At the end of every session, he thanks me. Sometimes he shakes my hand. He tells me I’m doing a great job. Sometimes I forget who is helping out whom.

Until yesterday, I had completely forgotten that whether I have a good writing morning or a bad writing morning completely affects my mood for the rest of the day.

Elements of a bad writing morning - I plan on setting aside 45 minutes to an hour before work to “sit at my desk,” but by the time I open the document, I only have 40 minutes. During my last writing session, I’d left off at the end of a section or chapter and I need to read myself back into my story. More than once, I get up to microwave coffee I no longer want to drink. I write a sentence. I decide to move to a different section of the chapter. I take the opportunity in between sections to use the bathroom. I read myself into this section. Ten minutes doesn’t feel like enough time to get anything done. I check my email. I read another paragraph and bold the sentence I want to start with the next morning.

It doesn’t sound too awful. I mean, shit, I tried, right. But there’s some serious repercussions to my tinkering. I find myself in pain at work: physical, emotional, and mental. My lack of productivity exacerbates my personal problems. Monday morning drags. My job, which I claim is for the purpsose of having the time and energy to write, feels more useless than usual. I have to do that visualization my mom suggests to help me get to noon: I hear the cha-ching in Pink Floyd’s “Money” while visualizing cherries coming up in Vegas slots.

Then, it hits me: I’m banking on the future while throwing away the present. I realize I’ve just extended my job contract for longer than I’ve been at my job. Six months is interminable. I picture the end date, my bulging savings account, the number of stops I can add to my round-the-world ticket. My travel plans nullify my book plans, and it’s a damn good thing because I remember all too clearly that leg-tapping, finger-picking morning in which I penned a whopping nine words.

It’s finally the afternoon, as in post-lunch, but the sun hasn’t burned through the August fog and writing at work is impossible because if I couldn’t do it this morning, I certainly can’t do it now. All of a sudden I’m Gchatting about jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. Luckily, everyone knows I’m kidding because if I’m really going to do it, there’s a balcony about ten feet from my desk. And then it strikes me, just leave work, which I do. At 3pm. Consider going to the gym. Kill my brain instead. Call it decompression. File it under being a writer.

I honestly forgot that this is what my life is like when I’m writing regularly. For the past few weeks, I’ve been so excited, engaged, and encouraged by sitting at my desk that any writing was good writing. Not a bad motto to follow, but one that isn’t always easy. Today was a much better writing morning.

Elements of a good writing morning: I spend a half hour reading over a chapter, but instead of folding my laundry on the way to the desk, I sit down. I open a document I don’t expect to open — the chapter outline. I remember hating it, crashing into the big cement wall of it three months ago, but it isn’t half bad. I realize that over the past few weeks I’ve actually read about 70 pages of my book without vomitting, and that it is much easier to stay at the desk and write when I’m not throwing up in my mouth often. I work through the chapter summaries for the first four chapters and barely take a break between each one. I build momentum. Believe that by working chapter by chapter, I can compete the outline. Soon. I saunter out of the house into the sunny day, blissful and accomplished.

At work, my job is still meaningless. An awful smell emanates from the kitchen by my desk. People walk by, holding their noses, looking at me like I’m nuts for sitting near whatever it is: rotting quiche, moldy vegetables, the half and half that’s been in there since our move-in breakfast months ago. Someone calls human resources to remove the stink. The hiring manager walks down the hall spraying everyone with cancer in a can from the bathroom. I don’t care. About any of it. My book will be published. I will be famous. Or so I will believe until my next bad writing session.

Three Cups of Tea (Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin, but mostly Relin, I’d guess) - I read this because everywhere I went — muni, the doctor’s office, work, the gym — someone was carrying around a copy. Because so many people were reading it, I figured the circle on the front cover (not shown here) was for Oprah’s Book Club. But it turns out the circle is for the Kiriyama Prize (a $15,000 prize) recognizing “outstanding books about the Pacific Rim and South Asia…”

Basically, this is Mortenson’s story: He gets lost in the remote reaches of northern Pakistan after a failed attempt at K2 and because of the local hospitality promises to return to the village and build a school. He goes back to the States without a clue about how to do this, lives out of a car (called La Bamba) and a storage unit in Berkeley, and ends up starting his own non-profit and building all these schools (with an emphasis on girls’ education) in Muslim areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan that we (those of us who are dumb that is) associate with American-hating terrorists. Seriously, this is an uplifting, inspiring story. Mortenson for president! As long as he takes Relin as his speech writer.

My guess is award winning journalist, David Oliver Relin, did all of the writing. This is some high quality narrative nonfiction, a page-turner of a story complete with the contextual depth that comes from tying the story into current events (9/11 occurs during the span of the story) and the climbing history of the area. The landscape of northern Pakistan is described with such precision and beauty (who knew ice could be so magical?) it makes me want to risk life and limb and 3-4 days worth of travel to get there. Some of the writing about the area is forced (especially with climbing metaphors), but there are really only so many ways to describe the crags on the mountains and the endless snow fields. I also have some gripes about the story itself, which had all the elements of a summer movie blockbuster — romance, action, a happy ending – all tied up with a nice litle bow. But in a buyer’s market, this is what passes for good salable narrative.

Motherless Brooklyn (Jonathen Lethem) - I guess I was on an award kick, because this novel won the National Book Award in 1999. While I’m sure I missed half of Lethem’s brilliance, his play on the lineage of hard-boiled detective stories, I was impressed by the protaganist. The guy had Tourette’s. Can you imagine writing an entire book from the first-person perspective of someone with verbal and physical tics and not driving the reader nuts? With his words, Lethem can express more in one paragraph than I will ever ever be able to in my career as a writer.

Dreams From My Father (Barack Obama. Potentially with the help of a ghost writer?) I read this because I’d heard it was especially “literary,” and it is. The memoir is broken up into three parts — childhood with mother and grandparents and step-dad in Hawaii and Indonesia, post-collegiate community organizing in Chicago, soul searching visit to Kenya to meet his father’s side of the family. For the most part, the book reads as Obama’s story to reconcile his mulitracial, multiethnic, multicultural heritage; a quest for an identity that feels authentic, all-encompassing, and honest; and the search for a life purpose that takes identity, family, and community into consideration. All things that are universal human endeavors, and throughout most of the book, truly resonated with me.

One of my issues had to do with the remarkable amount of detail, and perhaps this is my issue with memoirs, in general. This memoir had hundreds of scenes. And in each one, the clothing, facial expresssions, haircuts of characters met only for seconds are perfectly rendered, as is the wallpaper of rooms, the trim of the buildings, and the number of steps on houses. Either Obama kept a damn good journal, or a bunch of researchers pulled pictures and found all sorts of facts for him, or he is like Augusten Burroughs, who claims to be able to relive his scenes as he writes them, capturing every element with factual accuracy.

Aside from reading this article and this one about Obama’s books, I don’t know much about his writing process, like how long it took, how much help did he have? Is he just one of those uber-smart individuals who can figure out how to write a book simply by calling upon a lifetime (or in his case, 30-something years) of reading. When I first picked up the book, I was naive enough to think Obama wrote it without presidential aspirations in mind. The official occasion for the book was that he was the first black president of the Harvard Law Review. But as the Obama article in the recent issue of the New Yorker (the one with the “satirical” cover) makes clear, he’s been thinking about his political prospects for a long time and a great deal of thought probably went into this memoir as far as building a future political platform, especially as sets in print, now and forever, his journey to a racial identity.

I must confess. I couldn’t read about 20-30 pages near the end of the memoir. He was in Kenya and went on and on and on about his brother’s father’s dad’s sister’s uncle, as told by his mother’s sister’s son. It reminded me of really bad creative nonfiction workshop. Someone always comes in and says she wants to record her family story for “posterity,” and it just means I’m going to be subjected to one long dinner conversation from Aunt Maggie’s. By the end of the book, Obama seems to have forgotten the most important point of a good memoir is not to tell your life story, but to make the story larger than your life. This memoir was mostly great, but did not have to be anywhere near 400+ pages. Less is more, buddy.

It’s official. I’m not just writing, but writing writing again. At my desk; at the cafe. In the morning; in the afternoon. On weekdays; on weekends. I’m exaggerating some. I’ve only done one of each of those things. But still, I’m rather pleased with myself.

I even started working on my “book” again. I’m not quite sure if this is the first time I’ve mentioned that behemoth of a word on this blog. It probably is. Sometimes it’s best not to let people know you have aspirations, even if that aspiration is to remove the scare quotes from a 55,000 word document that is floundering somewhere between graduate thesis and unpublishable manuscript.

About three months ago, I shoved the latest of my papers, printouts, notes, and marked up copies into a corner of my workspace where they remained face down and disorganized. I hid the soft copies of everything in the corner of my desktop. I mentally checked out. And when I checked back in a couple weeks ago, I realized what a gift the distance has been.

I’m not as attached. To any of it.

I’ve always thought of myself as a pretty good reviser. It doesn’t torture me to “kill my babies,” or ax four days worth of an opening section to an essay that is nothing more than “throat clearing.” But changing direction in a book is not like rearranging a room; it’s more like moving from one house to another.

You have to pack up all your crap, put it in labelled boxes and try not to break the fragile pieces. Junk is chucked, and only when you arrive in the new house, do you realize you need it. What you once kept in the bedroom is now in the den. You may love that couch, but squeezing it through the doorjamb is not your idea of an enjoyable Saturday afternoon. You need to ask for help. When you switch the couch to the other side of the living room, you need more help. The idea of moving is exhausting. The idea of reinvisioning my book was overwhelming.

I’ve known for some time now that I’m shifting away from a journalistic approach to a more personal take on my subject matter. I’ve been doing it from some time, too. Yet, it’s been more of a crawl, as my fear at losing what I had prevented me from sprinting into unknown territory.

Also, instead of focusing on the writing of my “book,” I got very hungup on my book proposal, the package of sample pages, outline, and marketing hook that seals the nonfiction book deal. With the contract, the writer has the time and advance cash to research and write, as well as the guarantee (that doesn’t always end up being a guarantee) of publication, not to mention the shaping hand of both agent and editor, keeping the writer on track for the version of his vision that will make everyone the most money.

Here’s the problem: I can’t outline the damn thing. Because the voice, narrative, and focus is changing. Because despite receiving constant feedback that I have a “solid draft,” I have a solid draft of a “book” I don’t want to write. What I need is a solid draft of the book I do want to write. Like I told my friend who lived with crack dealers and borderline abusive men in a cheap flat on Haight St, “I don’t care if the price is right, you need to get the hell out of that house and move.” 

Here’s the solution: I’m going to work through my whole damn manuscript, chapter by chapter, and move through it until I start hearing my voice and humor and seeing the shape of a story I like.

For the last three months, when everything related to the book developed cobwebs, the possibility of finishing or of publication was zilch. And I got used to it. It didn’t hurt me. If I spend the next three months working towards a solid draft of the book, it’d be hard to consider that a waste of time. I already wasted enough time to stop caring about it for a while.

I started writing again. Sorta. It really all depends on what I mean by “writing.” I write on this blog, but I don’t revise anything here. And as they say, “writing is revising,” so I don’t usually consider this writing. I did some revising last week, some minor tweaking. It’s also hard to call that writing, even though for three different sessions, I worked on the same essay. Finished it, even. A big deal since it’s something I started  almost 4 years ago, before grad school.

But the real reason I’m calling that writing is that I removed my computer from its home on my stomach, got out of my bed, and sat at my desk like an adult at work.

It’s all about getting to the desk.

Today, that desk is far. Across an ocean, a gorge, Kansas. The coffee didn’t do the trick. Maybe if I shower,  I’ll have the energy to get there.

Approaching the end, or almost the end, thankfully so, of what is my 30th birthday celebration, I’d like to indulge in some decade in review navel gazing.

Turning 30 may very well be my proudest accomplishment, a greater achievement than any graduation or rite of passage, like my Bat Mitzvah or first girl kiss. Last Thursday, I heard, “Happy Birthday,” “It’s about time,” and “Welcome to the club,” but I kept waiting for someone to shake my hand and say, “Congratufuckinglations. You did it.” Because, oh what I did.

My early twenties might as well have been an extension of college, except I received a paycheck. As this was during the dot com depression, even when I didn’t go to work, I was paid, my checks arriving from an organization I never lifted a finger for called the “Employment Development Department.” I passed these post-collegiate years, my queer adolescence, in a state of experimental confusion, evidenced by the many mornings I was still chain-smoking menthol cigarettes at the End Up when the sun rose.

In my early twenties, I concentrated on escapism with an emphasis in drugs. I may or may not have been called “Numero Uno” for my remarkable ability to go to work after a sleepless night. I did many dumb things during this time, but I guess there’s no point in stating the obvious. Better to say I did one, maybe two, smart things. I started to see a therapist who resembled a squirrel and regularly wore red leather pants. She liked to say, “That’s too bad,” and “I’m so sorry,” and somehow this helped me to quit taking anti-depressants, begin working out and lose 25 lbs.

During my mid-twenties, I cobbled together an income from odd jobs, many for friends with small businesses. I worked at a coffee cart, neurobiology lab, and a furniture warehouse; I answered a Craigslist Et Cetera job ad to hand out newspapers at a racetrack; I was a landscaping assistant despite being a city kid who couldn’t identify a weed; I spent a week organizing a Datsun car part junkyard for a paraplegic while the guy who wanted to be my boyfriend fixed his car.

On some days, my alarm went off at 4:50 am. I worked 12 hour days, in the sun and in the wind, manual label and data entry, for whatever anyone was willing to pay me. I took every job having a college degree should have helped me to avoid, and for the first time ever, I learned what it meant to work hard. I learned that I liked it. My squirrelly therapist called me “industrious,” and for those middle years, I didn’t worry about the future, a career.

Every time I had more than $5,000 in my savings account, I stopped accepting odd jobs and went traveling, often alone. I explored, fought through challenges, discovered my independence, built a base of self upon transience and instability. I found out that I’m my own best company and that if I mumble to myself or write down my thoughts, it’s almost as if I’m having a two-sided conversation with a great friend.

In my late twenties, I returned to San Francisco, a place that by default was turning into my home. I invested, committed, followed my passion and disappeared into books, stories, and words. I joined a community of writer’s, a graduate writing program that felt more like summer camp than school. Nearly three years passed this way.

Before the decade ended, I did the one final thing to make my twenties complete. No, not a gender change, although it was certainly under consideration. To cap off the decade, I let another person into my heart, fell in love, floated on the splendor, sunk on the disappointment, and crawled away believing that someday I’ll do it again.

I have plans, or maybe not plans, but thoughts for my thirties. They don’t seem worth mentioning. If my twenties are any guide, I’ll spend the next decade constantly surprised, doing the exact opposite of all that I intend. I do have it in my head that with the soul-searching angst of my early adulthood behind me and the fear of aging still far away, that this will be the greatest decade. I am in the best physical, mental and spiritual shape of my life. I am comfortable and confident. Happy with myself, my growth and development.

Bring on my thirties…

I thought I hated holidays. I was prepared to put on my top hat and swim trunks, go all summer Scrooge and write a ranting post at the end of this long holiday weekend. I expected all to go as planned when the surprise email hit my work inbox on Thursday morning: Office closing at noon!

Bastards! Someone from HR might as well have come up to my desk, asked me to take out my wallet and hand over all my cash before tapping me on the shoulder and telling me to enjoy the day. I’m a contractor, someone who relishes the acceptability and expectation of pre-holiday afternoons of zero productivity. While being paid.

My annoyance lasted about 11 minutes, and then it was time to leave. Pusing through the revolving door of my office highrise, the mid-day Thursday air greeted me in a way that it never had before. It said, “You have no responsibilities. No plans. Nothing.”

Perhaps it was the preceeding month of chaos. Of travel and indulgence and so many days spent in the company of others, but I was relieved that many of my friends were out of town, that both of my roommates were gone. I even felt comforted by the fog that descended upon the city on the 4th. I’m not trying to spite the masses of picnic goers, BBQers, or fireworks lovers any more than my company tried to spite me by cutting my hours on Thursday; I just finally got a holiday on my own terms — no ceremony, no universal celebration, no people bothering me with their general peopleness.

I though a lot this weekend about the timeI spent in Cesky Krumlov, an anacrhonistic town in the Czech Republic with arched gates, a medieval castle and cobblestone streets. Bustling with tourists in the summer, in the winter, or at least the beginning of December, the town is dead. The only other backpackers at my hostel, some Canadian guys, left after the standard 2 day visit, just enough time for us to fire up some absinthe shots and for me puke my guts out. Then there was nobody left in the hostel but me. I, too, was only supposed to stay two days. I planned to head to Berlin before meeting my friend in Paris, the end of a two and half month trip, most of which I traveled alone.

I still wonder what it was that allowed or caused me to stay in Cesky Krumlov for two weeks. I remember reading for entire mornings — The Life of Pi and The Book of Laughter and Forgetting and The Unbearable Lightness of Being (I seemed to think that reading Milan Kundera in his homeland might help me understand it. Maybe it did a little.) I tried several cafes, but started to regularly visit this one decorated with Beethoven themes where I could listen to the river cascade by the window.

Every day in the afternoon, I’d walk up to the castle, across the drawbridge and wander around the grounds. I’d sit by the frosting lake and write in my journal or talk into my mini-tape recording device — the castle chronicles, I called my ramblings. I went on walks — to the local ice hockey rink and along a marked trail into the woods. I cooked simple grocery store dinners — pasta or rice and anything green I could find along with something out of a can — while watching the Simpsons dubbed into German. I read more.

Once a day, I would write a very long email to a friend in San Francisco, our deliberating exchanges building into one long conversation. That interaction took care of almost all of my human contact needs. My only other human contact came from a Brazilian guy with crystalline blue eyes, haunting in their beauty. I saw him when he came for his daily check  in on the Merlin hostel where I stayed. He told me one of the town legends, the one famous to the expats, about those travelers who came and never left: The Curse of Cesky Krumlov.

Maybe it was some type of magic — the supposedly enchanted hollow trees near the castle, the hypnotizing effect of the encircling Vltava River — that kept me grounded in that town until the last possible day.

This weekend, I shifted reading positions from my back deck, to couch, to chair, to bed to cafe. I interspersed my readings with walks and runs and  yoga, with a satisfying conversation here and another one there. I stuffed my face with fruits and vegetables and ice cream. For the first time in a while, I felt as if I’d donned my backpack, my traveler mindset, and had arrived at that place where aloneness is expansive and being occupied has nothing to do with being busy. With all of the junk and distraction cleared from around me, I felt myself back in the hostel, thriving on the solace of Cesky Krumlov, unaccountable to everyone, lost in my own bohemia.

This is probably the best first line of an author’s note I’ve ever read:

“The events described in these stories are realish.”

Can you guess who wrote it?

David Sedaris. It’s on the copyright page (hidden as all such notes are) of his new book, When You are Engulfed in Flames. With all the hullabaloo about lying in memoir, creative nonfiction, etc. I just think Sedaris has the right idea here. While we all now what “realish” means–close to true–my favorite part of using “realish” is that it’s not even a word. It’s a child’s construction, and the result is that it mocks any sense of seriousness or adherence to Truth.

The second line is not so bad either: “Certain characters have fictitious names and identifying characteristics.”

Such a simple note. Perfect really.

On Saturday afternoon, my friend Ashley and I headed South on coastal Route 1. We were headed to a barn dance at Pie Ranch, the farm responsible for the those great baked goods sold in the city at Mission Pie. Although every month the farm invites friends and family for a potluck and night of contra dancing (similar to square dancing), this barn dance was to be a special summer solstice party, as well as what my friend, farmer Dede, an apprentice at Pie Ranch, billed as the queerest barn dance in the land. This being June, all of Dede’s friends were invited to do what we do best in June: turn everything gay.

When we reached Pescadero, traffic stopped in both directions. Bystanders told us the road would be closed for 8-10 hours for an investigation. Ashley knew we were only about 100 meters shy of the farm, and could see the barn around the bend. So she parked the car in a dirt patch on the side of the road, and we proceeded to walk up into and along the scene of a five-car crash. As we walked, Ashley’s mind ran wild with the possibilities. I don’t know why mine didn’t. Maybe I thought car accidents happen to “other” people. And on this day, they did.

Several people associated with Pie Ranch, heading to the barn dance in a convertible, were involved in the crash, but suffered no injuries. The speeding, swerving driver who caused the crash died instantly, but remained stuck in his car for an hour. In another car, a man from San Francisco, badly injured, survived for 20 minutes after the accident, but not longer. For over an hour, his girlfriend was trapped inside the same car. She survived and was airlifted by helicopter to the hospital. Ashley and I arrived not long after the helicopter left.

Several workers on the farm saw the whole thing. The accident took place so close to the barn, it’s a surprise one of the cars didn’t fly into it. The bodies, the injured and the dead, stayed on the road for long after the impact. Between the glass and debris and the Pie Ranch folks at the picnic tables waiting to give statements to the police, there was nothing in the atmosphere that bespoke party.

Only two things could play out for the rest of the night. First, as guests continued to arrive, there would be lots of chatter about what happened, how it happened. Different people would recreate the accident, the collision dynamics. Others would ask questions upon questions, details so everyone could talk through the shock. Second, there would be lots of appreciation, thankfulness for being alive, about being together; a dangerous sort of collective sentiment to be let out in a hippie community of farmers.

I would’ve done anything to get out of there. To run, to flee, to turn back around.

One of the farm’s leaders suggested hauling the picnic tables by pick-up to another part of the land; I was all for it. But the avoidance plan was quickly shut down as over time the commotion along the accident strewn road quieted and the cops departed. So many people were already there for the celebration, that the leaders decided to go along with the potluck, the rest of the night’s activities to be decided.

Goat stew was the main course. Or to be more specific, “Fiesta” stew. Dede was the first person to say it, to reference the name of the goat. “Sorry,” she said right afterwards. “I’m not sure if that’s okay.” But it was apparently alright. Others who live on the farm referred to Fiesta by name, as well. They lived on the farm for a month with Fiesta, cared for her and loved her. “That’s the circle of life,” I heard someone say, clearly talking about both the goat and the accident.

The sun fell. The sky darkened. The stars would soon start to pop. A semi-sermon grounding everyone into the events of the day, our ecological surroundings, and as I expected, our reasons to be thankful ensued. A woman with gray hair and a dress that made it clear she didn’t care much about what other people thought, said that she wanted to dance. “I want to dance in honor of the people who died today. For their families who don’t yet know they have lost loved ones.”

I know that I didn’t think consciously about the families of the dead, or about the people whose blood still remained on the road within a stone’s throw of the party. I had eavesdropped on one conversation that day, a father telling his son of the debilitating fear he felt approaching the ranch. I witnessed one mother greet her daughter in an explosion of tears. I had walked alongside Ashley while we approached the accident, thinking that her best friend was in it. I never let myself feel that fear; express that relief.

My meltdown occurred after dinner, sitting at a picnic table. I started to cry, an almost endless stream of tears. Getting up and finding some privacy didn’t even occur to me; embarssment and self-pity were far from my mind. I was thankful that nobody said they were sorry I was sad, or tried to cheer me up, or make it to away, or treat my surge of emotion as a bad thing. My friends took turns rubbing my back, wrapping arms around me, holding my head. And maybe it was the physical contact, the warmth and compassion of their bodies, the connectedness and safety that made it impossible for me to stop.

Nobody asked me why I was so upset either. I think all who knew me understood I was grieving. For everything.

I cried for death. For Fiesta. For mortality. For the exhausting jig I’m doing while some yahoo out of a Wild West movie shoots bullets at my feet, screaming, “Dance, motherfucker, dance.” Bullets coming closer and closer, dust clouds rising by my shoes, I know there is nothing I can do to protect myself, my friends, my family.

I grieved for the tiny deaths, too, that of each moment, that which is sometimes called “change.” I cried for my own insecurity, an understanding that we are nothing, have nothing, death strips us of all that we build ourselves up to be, all that we hold onto.

For the death of my relationship, and the first spadefulls of dirt hitting the coffin, slowly filling in the grave. For the shoveling still left to be done, a mound of earth, level ground, a new relationship. For my brother who is ready to leave behind this country, this culture, me. For the uncertainty of his future and his hopeful leap across the ocean.

Why couldn’t I stop crying? That damn moon. Its pull on the ocean, the waves crashing in and out. The cycle of nature. Its pull on my body. The end of the month. PMS.

Eventually, I did stop. I even went into the barn and despite myself, I danced. I twirled my partner left and twirled my partner right. I traded partners. I skipped and sashayed, slapped my thighs and slapped my partner’s hands. I dosey doed. Repeatedly. I listened to a speech about how we transformed the energy of the evening, the implicit meaning: we turned tragedy into mindful celebration.

I wish I could say that I still head some strength in me to remain with my own discomfort and that of the day’s events and triggers. But when the last car was headed back to San Francisco, I asked for a ride. I barely knew the couple and we would have to cram in the front cab of a pickup. It didn’t matter. I thought that by leaving, I could escape to the comfort of my home, that it would offer me a sense of security, protect me. Instead of continuing to stare my own pain in the face, I fled like the chickens on the farm where I was supposed to be sleeping. I followed the couple, a husband and wife who were exceedingly warm and open, but whose names I couldn’t remember, out to their truck.

We walked out past the barn. The night, the space, the escape filled me with freedom. I finally felt the relief, that of thinking I had left it all behind. We walked in the dark, under a star-pocked sky, the moon not yet out.

“Watch out for the car roof,” the husband said.

The wife scanned the ground. It wasn’t that dark out, and the roof was huge, mangled by the five-car accident that left two people dead. I don’t know how she missed it, nearly tripped over it. I don’t know why he needed to say, “car roof,” so specific was the reminder.

I do know why I tried to escape, why I try to deny death, its omnipresence in the large and small. I am afraid.