Blind spots

One day several months ago, a writer friend and I were taking a walk. He was telling me about how his father hadn’t loved him and how that relationship was holding him back, stopping him from writing.

Well, write about that, I thought. Write about being rejected. That’s your story, your wound. It might not be the only thing you could write about, but maybe you need to write about that so you can write about other things.

But I didn’t tell him what I was thinking. Why? Because, in my experience, when it comes to our own stories, self-discovery is vital. It’s just not the same thing when someone tells us what they think we might need to write about. In addition, as my friend and I were walking along, I could actually sense his writer’s block. It felt heavy and solid, like it had a lot of history behind it and wasn’t going to move.

The whole incident made me sad, because, when it came to writing, my friend was just as talented as a lot of writers I know. But sometimes our stories are so close to us, so embedded into our bodies and psyches, that we can’t see them. That’s why they’re called blind spots, I guess.

Joseph O'Neill

I drew the above sketch while watching a TV show in which Charlie Rose interviewed novelist Joseph O'Neill, author of Netherland: A Novel. The story is about two cricket players (which is why you can see the words "play cricket" on O'Neill's forehead). When asked about his writing process, O'Neill said that, unlike some writers who compare writing to chipping away at a piece of marble to reveal a human figure, he makes random chips at the stone to see what happens.

Office supplies

The only things I like more than Pilot G-2 07 pens (Ah, the comfort of the rubber grip, the easy release of the black ink) are blank, 3-inch-by-5-inch index cards (Just the right size for cupping in the hand while jotting down a writing idea) and file folders (Buff color only, please, letter size).

Other people may prefer hanging out in coffee houses, dress shops or taverns, but I spend my off hours in office-supply stores, those big- and small-box outlets crammed floor-to-ceiling with all things clerical and writerly.

Heading down an aisle inside Office World or Paper Emporium, I breathe in the scent of 10-inch-by-13-inch mailing envelopes with their reinforced eyelets and long-life clasps. Then it’s on to the next row, where I fondle packages of red-edged address labels, Super Sticky florescent-green Post-it® notes and laminated maps of the world.

Extra-strong storage boxes that support up to 350 pounds beckon me on, followed by the perforated notepads, disappearing-glue sticks and bags of size 16 rubber bands. Who could bypass the pencil pillows, desk pads and leather-bound journals, the high-back chairs with lumbar support or ignore the briefcases (leather and plastic, with and without wheels), computers and printers, calculators and shredders, scissors and letter openers?

Eventually, I stumble out the door, feeling uplifted, as if life mattered somehow.

Plein Air

At about this same time last year, I took part in a Plein Air event during which writers and painters wrote and painted outdoors in the Columbia River Gorge. It took place on a beautiful day with the sun shining brightly overhead, but I was carrying with me a certain feeling of sadness, a result of something that happened the night before.

I’d gone out for dinner with a friend, a member of a writing group I’d belonged to for many years. After we ate and talked, Beverly was walking me to my car when she told me she thought our writing group might be ending, that the whole thing had run its course. I didn’t say so at the time, but I felt sad, to think what Beverly said might be true. In typical fashion, I dealt with it by making a joke, about how I would send an e-mail to the members with a subject line that read, “Writing Group Dies Slow, Agonizing Death.”

It was true. Signs of the group breaking up had been showing up for months, if not years. Still, for some reason, I didn’t want to give up on the group. In addition to the fact that I just liked hanging out with writers, many of the group members had become my best friends. So that’s what I was thinking about during Plein Air – about loss and endings and giving up; but although I was feeling sad, at the same time, I was aware of the bright sun overhead. And I wrote this poem:

Fallen Fruit

Narrow shouldered and
Bottom heavy
The ripened pears
Fell like copper buddhas
Onto the welcoming earth

Where they
Kept each other company
After having given up on summer
Allowing gravity to do its work

Offering comfort
For lonely souls
Passing by
Revealing secrets
Hidden in the shadows of branches
Reflecting the strength
Of the sun overhead

Free copies

One morning not long ago, I unlocked and opened my post-office box to find three thick, glossy copies of Oregon Home magazine stuffed inside, along with a copy of Oregon Home's Get Guide, and a kind note from the editor. The day before, I received two copies of Oregon Humanities, with a colorful cartoon on the front.

As I wrestled the magazines out of the small box, I gave thanks for one of the benefits of being a freelance writer — free copies of magazines.

Small-town news

Other people may be addicted to sugar or sex. Me, I’m addicted to small-town newspapers, the more picayune the better. Whenever I visit a tiny town, the first thing I do is find a newspaper stand, where I plunk down two or three quarters for a copy of the local gazette, to find out what’s going on, what the residents are talking about.

Maybe it’s because I grew up in the small town of Fairbanks, Alaska — where I cut my journalism teeth on the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, with its articles about moose sightings and curling bonspiels and its regular “Sourdough Jack Sez” column — that I have a soft spot for what other people might dismiss as insignificant rags.

Whatever the reason, I still enjoy reading everything from the Skamania County Pioneer to the Goldendale Sentinel, with their fuzzy photos showing someone handing someone else an oversized check and their features on everything from rooster-crowing contests and spelling bees to county fairs and students making the dean’s list.

Maybe it’s the relatively low percentage of crime stories combined with the unpretentious prose that makes the papers so appealing. Maybe it’s their neighborly, we’re-all-in-this-together tone combined with the outspoken letters to the editor and weekly recordings of births and deaths. Now what could be more significant than that?

Making fun of myself

Last night, I took part in a reading at Blackbird Wineshop (blackbirdwine.com) in Portland, Oregon. The audience clapped in all the right places, perhaps because I had more than one plant in the crowd, including two members of my writing group and their spouses, a former writing student and my painting teacher and her husband.

Only a humor writer, I suppose, would understand what fun it is to be laughed at, something a more well-adjusted person might try to avoid. I read two pieces: “Hooked on Antifreeze,” about my tendency to return, again and again, to my hometown of Fairbanks, Alaska; and “New York Agent,” about my inability to schmooze.