The Little Winter - Joy Williams

Reg Innell/Toronto Star/Getty Images

Joy Williams, 1990

This will be the fifth of a total of seven encounters (as of now) that I will have with Joy Williams.

Previous stories by Joy appearing in BASS can be found here :

Bromeliadsfrom BASS 1978

TheSkater from BASS 1985

Health from BASS 1986

TheBlue Men from BASS 1987

And I will encounter her again in 1995 and 2005.

Because Richard Ford (the editor of BASS 1990) decided to place the storied in the collection alphabetically by the author’s last name, Joy appears last in this collection.

The story is a fitting end to this group of stories – I really enjoyed it. Perhaps some of the enjoyment came from the knowing that I had reached the end of this book (more about this in the next post).

But – not to take away from this story, it deserved to be in this collection.

Dan Kois in his September 2015 piece for the New York Times on Williams writes - “The typical Williams protagonist is a wayward girl or young woman whose bad decisions, or bad attitude, or both, make her difficult to admire…”

In this story, there’s a little bit of that with Gloria. I don’t particularly admire her…but I like her –

As I read this story and details were revealed, I started to wonder if I’d behave the way Gloria does knowing what she knows. Perhaps at another stage in my life, when I was younger, I would – and it’s fun to think about it and run through various scenes, but now, my life, those who depend on me, look up to me, pretty much place boundaries on the extremes of my behavior.

But who knows?

I might have that opportunity.

How will I behave?

I’m looking down the road now and I’m facing a big ‘ol nasty monster. One that could start eating up my memories – and if this monster appears when it did in my father, I’ve got about 15 years – give or take. And if that doesn’t get me, there’s another one that could gobble me up in 23 years if it appears as it has in my mother.

Knowing what may be coming for me, has my behavior changed?

I believe that it has.

I’m not Gloria – not stealing a dog from monks or (basically) kidnapping a little girl.

No, I’ve made some lifestyle changes that I hope will keep that monster away – and give me, and my family a little more time.  

I wear this ROAD ID dog tag on my runs. It has emergency numbers on it just in case I get run over and they have to peel me off the road. As you can see, there is also a key on the chain. That key came from my father’s attaché case – a leather one that he made and the key was used as a clasp. I engraved M and the boys initial’s into the key as a reminder as to why I am running. As I push myself down the road, the key bounces against my body reminding me, motivating me.

I get home, drink chia and make a kale smoothie, ginger, beet, turmeric, peanut butter, hemp.

I eat lentils for lunch and save meat for dinner.

I read and try to get some sleep – which is a real challenge.

I write in a journal about my fears – my hopes for my family if the monster gets me.

The monsters hang over me and my life and I think of when I might encountering them on a daily basis.

Sometimes those thoughts weigh heavily – like when I hear my father’s voice on the phone – as he struggles to form a single word…that emerges from his mouth as “helfujakf”. I think back to the last time I was able to have an actual conversation with him and am astounded at how much he has changed. And I wonder if one day my son’s will hear me struggle to get words out.

And the hugs I give my boys at bedtime last a little longer.

Will there be a trigger? Will there be a point where I can feel the slip? How will I deal with it then?

Looking back through these entries it looks like I first touched on this subject back in 2009. This was before the boys were born. I was wrestling with my future then, and I continue to do so today 8 years later.

Commuter Marriage – Joan Wickersham

Poking around the net it’s nice to see that Joan is still writing and reading and writing!

I enjoyed this story. It moved along at a nice pace, the characters had depth, vivid honest human settings, and I feel that it had that late 1980s feel moving towards the writing of the early 90s – glad that Ravenel and Ford decided to include it.

I never had a commuter marriage –fortunately -  in fact, I think the longest M and I have been apart during our marriage was just under a week during training I had back in the early 2000s.

When I hear about commuter marriages I wonder how they survive – but many do. I know that some couples can’t survive if they are too close – and I wonder what they thought they were getting into.

I feel that our arrangement is the right one. You see, I think that if it were any other way, I would not be the person that I am today. M reins me in. She keeps me on a pretty tight leash and actually, for my own sanity and health, that’s a very good thing.

It’s said that men who are married live longer and that can partially be attributed to the fact that they have a spouse that forces them to take care of themselves…go to the Dr. – eat right maybe get some exercise.

Sometime back in 2003---M was in the bathroom, getting ready for work and I walked in to pee. I can’t remember what I had been doing right before that but halfway through peeing, I became light headed and basically dropped to the floor. Close to passing out but not quite.

Of course this freaks her out. A doctor’s appointment is made and I’m in the exam room within the week. Guess who had high cholesterol – and not-so-good blood pressure and had to get a liver biopsy – that indicated that he had a fatty liver?

I was overweight, had a poor diet, drank too much and didn’t exercise.

Enter the concerned motivated wife with a bullwhip.

Stopped drinking cold turkey, began eating like an adult, (no more Doritos, Mountain Dew and Oreos for lunch) and started morning walks.

As the months passed the focus on nutrition became a passion, the walks turned into runs, and as the months and years passed, the run developed into marathons and an ultra – and now have become a priority in my life.

I can say that because of her – and our marriage, my life is one that is much more liveable.

I, we, could never have a commuter marriage. I could never live in Maine at a French fry factory sitting at my father’s old desk with M in NYC living with some friends. I understand Maisie and her concerns about her marriage – I don’t image it lasted.

Head over to Joan’s webpage. Check her out on Facebook – she does readings quite often – and look at that – she was up at Vermont College of Fine Arts (VCFA) in Montpelier last year – I knew it as Vermont College when I was at Norwich and took a couple classes there.