Separation – Mary Gordon

This is my first encounter with Mary Gordon. Separation was first published in Antæus sometime in 1990. We will encounter Mary again as her stories are featured in BASS 1993, 1996 and 2007.

There have been a couple of stories that I’ve read in these anthologies that have caused me to get that “lump in the throat”. I can’t recall them immediately, but we can add this story to the list.

This story is a great example of how a person’s life situation at the time they read a story impacts them.

My reaction to this story today, I doubt would have been the same 4 years ago and surely, different 9 years ago.

And if I read this story 10 years from now or even 20 – perhaps the passage of time would have softened the emotions that this story stirred.

The memories of my first son’s first day of school are all too fresh. The memories of my second son’s first day of school exist even stronger.

Two very different experiences with two very different boys and two very different parents.

I think a lot about our sons moving through the various milestones in their lives.

I know that the feelings we had on that first day of school will come back time and again – and in some cases may even be stronger.

----For the past few nights, the boys have found their way into our bed. This is nothing new. It usually starts with a stormy or windy night that scares them and one will wake the other and I’ll discover a knee in my rib at 3:45 in the morning.

M and I wake and complain about them and scold them for leaving their beds but I think she and I both know that we don’t really mind it.

We know that their time with us is limited. Our time with them could be limited.

All we have is each other and if some comfort comes by to them… and we are just a bit uncomfortable, it isn’t much of a sacrifice in my book.

My oldest son is approaching the age that I was when my father left us. I remember things from that age. I think that his memories at that age will be far better than my memories at that age.   

The Custodian – Deborah Eisenberg

The Custodian first appeared in The New Yorker in the May 12^th 1990 edition. We’ll encounter another story by Eisenberg in the 2004 BASS first published in The Yale Review.

I enjoyed this story. It came in on the long side – again, I’m worried about my attention span – as so many of us are these days – and I need to get that under control. I’m sure if I look back on some of my previous readings, the story probably fits into the “normal” length category.

This story does what a short story is supposed to do and I can see why it was first chosen for publication in The New Yorker and then selected by Adams for inclusion in this BASS edition.

I think that there might be a surprising number of men and women out there (and in particular – in The New Yorker reader category) that can directly relate to the characters in this story. Either of the teenage girls, the wife of the young college professor or finally, the college professor. They can read the story laying down their own experiences next to their relatable character and feel comfort or a bit of uneasiness.

For me, I couldn’t relate to any of the characters but the story gave me the chance to be transported to this “world” and that’s another duty of a good short story.

It pulled me out of my day-to-day for ½ an hour.

I can’t recall exactly when I read this story over the past 3 months but I did need to skim over it for a few minutes to remember it before writing here.

It looks like I haven’t posted since December.

I know that I made the decision to revisit this page as I sat watching TV with the boys this morning.

Some stupid commercial came on and it caused me to think about my authentic self.

I fell that this space allows me to be in a “real” state – vs. where I have been for maybe the past 5 years.

I have changed so much over the past 10 years of reading and writing about these stories.

I want to exist more here.

Another Short Day in La Luz – Harriet Doerr

This was a very nice story to welcome me back to this collection of shorts. The struggle to read these stories continues.

Life…life…life.

This is our second encounter with Doerr. We first met her back in 2013 when I read and briefly wrote about Edie: A Life.

It looks like we’ll run into her writing again when her story appeared in the Best American Short Stories 2003.

This story appeared in the December 24,^, 1990, edition of The New Yorker. Quickly flipping through the pages of that issue, nothing really stands out to draw any sort of reflection on those times. Typical adverts for cars, booze, books, and travel. Nothing newsworthy stands out. 

In December 1990, I was home from Norwich – my first time back since leaving for school in the summer. I was a shell-shocked, shaved head, boy.

To the story. Reading this, there is a portion of the story where the main character reflects back to a tender moment between her and her husband who died three years ago.

I wonder sometimes what position I will be in (hopefully) many years from now. Will I be missed or will I do the missing? I wonder how M will reflect back on our times together.

At this stage of our lives, our days are taken up with raising the boys.

She wakes up in the mornings, tired, and finishes off making their lunches and breakfasts that I have already started preparing. She dresses them and runs them off to school as I head out the door to the paper. She has a few hours alone before the youngest returns home and lunch prep begins. An hour or so for cuddles and a light nap on the couch after lunch and it’s off to pick up big brother. Returning home, dinner prep begins and homework completion struggles rise. I return home and there is dinner followed by the bedtime routine which usually involves repeated visits from the boys back downstairs until we have to threaten them with “time out” around 9:00 on school nights. By this time, I’m wiped out and dozing in my chair hoping to get into bed by 10 so that I can wake at 5:25 and get a 10K in. 

So with this simplified overview of our daily lives, I have to wonder – if I died tomorrow, would there be tender moments that she would reflect back on? So much of the last many years have been taken up with just the day-to-day mundane tasks of living life.

This journal/blog space reflects that too and I point that out quite often. Of course, my fear is that when the time comes for us to have time together, with the boys grown and out of the house, we won’t know each other anymore. I only have this fear generated by my own insecurities.

And this is where this little short story brought me today.

    

Oil and Water · Millicent Dillon

Millicent Dillon gives hope to those that have stories in them but wait until their later years to let them out. She started down the path of becoming a writer at the age of 40 (in 1965) and didn’t become a full-time writer until 1983. Oil and Water was included in BASS when she was 66. So – it’s never too late!

I do not have the disciple to get my stories down on paper…yet. Who knows if that will ever happen.

Turning to the story.

Reading Oil and Water, I think back to college when I was dropped into a room with two other 18-year-olds.

I’m not sure how the university determined who should live with each other but my first two roommates were very interesting.  One just finished a summer at Parris Island Marine Corps Boot-Camp and he was going through some serious PTSD shit leaving that environment and getting dropped into the freshman experience at Norwich. Not to mention that the Iraq war (1990) was ramping up and his reserve unit was being activated…so he didn’t last long as a roommate. When he left, another guy was brought in to fill his position. I have a hard time dealing with writing about him because he died in 2009. Just a couple of minutes ago I went back and read his obituary and the University death notice that was sent to his classmates. What he did after graduation doesn’t seem to fit the person I lived with for 6 months and knew for a total of 4 years. He wasn’t my favorite person – but I can’t seem to write ill of him. The third roommate, the one that I lived with from the beginning to the end of freshman year was a strange guy but not one that I can find anything too disturbing about that would motivate me to go on a lengthy few sentences about.

With all three of these guys, our relationships were a bit like oil and water. We existed together – forced together but never combined.

I’ll wrap up this post with that.