A Sandstone Farmhouse – John Updike

Well hello there Mr. Updike!

Our society has changed quite a bit since we first met back in January 2010.

You were in 1980, and your story was featured in Playboy and I was reading it across time 30 years later.

For many, then and now, your work appearing in that publication would be a natural fit. There were quite a few opinions of your writing back in 1980  and into the 90s (plenty of hate) the early 2000s as well as in 2010 – and now, when you are discussed/studied, their opinions are colored by our societal shifts…as they should be. 

I loved your writing back in 2010, and now almost 10 years later, I still love your writing.

It was this anthology that brought me closer to you. I saw you develop and it allowed me to explore the critical discussion of your work. I learned so much.

And now, you are back in my life.

I rushed to this story, not only because it is the last one in this edition, and I’m so over this particular year, but it had been some time since we last had some time together.

I finished your story well over a month ago and I fell down the rabbit hole of researching you again.

That was a mistake.

I should have left well alone.

I climbed out of the hole, lessons learned, and here we are.

So, this story…

About three years ago, my sister and I cleaned out my mother’s house. We moved her into an apartment. It was the house that I moved into when I was 5 and my sister was 2.

We disturbed dust and pulled pictures off the walls that hadn’t moved in close to 40 years.

Curtains were pulled down and light shined in corners that were dark for a lifetime.

We did the cleaning in the summer and it was hot and sweaty. 

We piled boxes on the curb that were picked through by strangers. What they didn’t scavenge, the city trash collectors picked up with a giant claw truck.

We held an estate sale allowing strangers to tromp through the house and pay cents for what we and she spent good money on years before.

The house was too big for her and physically, she was too small for the house.

I thought a lot about that move and my mother while reading this story.

On occasion, I’ll drive past that house, my mother’s the one I was raised in and the memories come flooding back. 

Playing in the front yard, riding up and down the block on my bike, my skateboard. The early mornings - pushing my bike past the parked cars in the driveway so I could deliver the daily newspaper. 

Sitting on the front porch with friends. 

I look up at the attic window, my room, my refuge from age 13 to 18. 

The days I spent lying on my bed looking down at the street where I now sit in an idling car looking up at the empty windows.

So, Updike’s Sandstone Farmhouse took me back to my house, to those memories of EVERYTHING that happened there. 

Updike does that to me  - and I appreciate and love his writing for this. 

Dog Stories – Francine Prose

“Dog Stories” comes partly out of my continuing interest in the way people tell their stories – in this case, stories about dogs. … People never talk about nothing, not even when they seem to. There are always secret and interesting reasons for the stories they decide to tell and for the moments at which they choose to tell them.” – Francine Prose

I don’t find myself in the position much to be on the receiving end of a good dog story. Most stories that come my way are through work, and I can’t really call those “stories”.

I suppose a reason that I’m not on the receiving end is that I’m rarely in social situations that allow others to tell me stories. I don’t have a large social circle and most stories that come my way are told to me by my children.

The advice that Prose gives above though can be used with those stories because my kids are great at choosing the times to tell me their stories.

Through this BASS reading exercise, I have found a great spark to tell some of my stories. The story randomly finds its way to me across time and provides the spark to ignite the process of thought. Sometimes this process can last days, weeks or months. Sometimes I can relate to a story immediately.

What is unfortunate though is that I find myself falling into the habit of not reading and in turn, not telling my stories.