Mama Tuddi Done Over – Leon Rooke

Leon Rooke - September 11, 1934

I had a bit of trouble with this story. I believe that the problem existed with me and not with the story. In the end, it was a fine – wonderful story. I just couldn’t get my head wrapped around it. The problem is, that this is just the type of story that I enjoy.

Rooke is quite the author. I think this small paragraph below illustrates the story best. It’s from Contemporary Authors Online-

In the New York Times Book Review, Alberto Manguel finds Rooke hard to classify: "[Rooke's] style varies greatly not only from book to book but sometimes from page to page. It is impossible to speak of a typical Leon Rooke paragraph; each one sets out to explore different voices and textures."

Perhaps it was the voices and textures I was having trouble with. You see, if I were an author – I think I would lean towards writing stories that bent reality.

It took some time in this story, but something “strange” entered the scene and when it did, it was powerful. Perhaps this is one of those stories that won’t fully impact me for some time. I’ll be lost someplace, and then – BAM- the meaning will hit me. Won’t that be great?

There are instances in life, and I have had them quite a bit, and it seems with increasing regularity, where something happens – either by a force known or unknown that causes us to shift our perception of life.

Perhaps I’m just more attuned to these “happenings” or maybe I am just labeling them. Either way, I have committed myself to turning them into something positive.

Something that will propel me upwards in my life.

This is an interesting contradiction in my life as well because of my recent questioning of religion and/or the supernatural. I don’t think I’m fully resolved in that area either. Just when I think I have made my mind up, something happens to push me either towards or away from where I thought I would land in a final decision.

You know...all of this uncertainty is cool sometimes. Being comfortable with being uncomfortable is comforting.

Home - James Robison

James Robison – born October 11, 1946.

This was a nice clean story.

It was an assurance to the reader that we all have insecurities and doubts no matter what age, over a wide variety of reasons and situations.

We have people and family that enter and exist in our lives, and the influence that those people have over us, as well as their actions, often cause ripples which in turn, can develop into massive waves, disrupting our life and causing distress.

We can wish and hope that loved ones act a certain way but they are in the end their own person. We have to deal with their decisions. They are family.

Several days ago, as I eased into a corner kitchen table, mind cloudy from wine and brandy (tucia for you Romanians), I overheard my brother-in-law tell his father that he was going to Afghanistan with the Army (Romanian) on the 22^nd. Now, I don’t remember if I walked in mid conversation, or if he thought that my Romanian wasn’t good enough to understand or if he knew that my knowing would eventually happen.

But now it gets interesting. At that moment, the people that knew were his wife, his Dad and me. He wants to, and intends to keep his deployment, a secret from his mother. Before I could discuss the issue concerning my mother-in-law, I pressed him to tell M. I mean, I really pressed him.

In the drunken brother way – knowing full well that this decision to go was a decision he wanted...he petitioned to go. He is, in his heart, a soldier.

So, about ½ an hour later, he tells M.

M is of course not happy with his plan or the fact that he wants to go to Afghanistan.

The conversation develops into so many directions – as one would expect a conversation of this type to develop.

Not to get any deeper into this story, but, in the end, we left Romania last week knowing that he was off to Afghanistan in a couple of weeks. The entire family knows – minus his mother. He is an adult. He knows what could happen to him over there. He knows what could happen to his mother if she knows...or never knows.

My prediction –

This is not going to end well.

But, he is family, this is our family, and this is a small ripple that is going to turn into a massive wave.

Three that know.

(L-R, Me, M and her brother)

Please be safe.

Friends – Grace Paley

Grace Paley Dec. 11, 1922 – August 22 2007

To begin with, it was pleasant to see a story in this volume with the focus on a group of women. Elkin has done a nice job in stuffing this book with stories about men. Honestly, I don’t think that he did a fair job in this case. Hey – I’m a man, and I know men, I enjoy reading about women – gives me some more insight – after all, I am using these readings as an education.

Actually, learning about the author of this short was a bit more interesting than the story.

Here are a few lines about Paley from an article about her in the NYT announcing her death in 2007.

-In a sense, her work was about what happened to the women that Roth and Bellow and Malamud’s men had loved and left behind.

- Her stories, many of which are written in the first person and seem to start in mid-conversation, beg to be read aloud.

-Grace’s childhood was noisy and warm. There were stories and songs and glasses of good strong tea. Always, there was glorious argument. The communists hollered at the socialists, the socialists hollered at the Zionists, and everybody hollered at the anarchists.

-A self-described “somewhat combative pacifist and cooperative anarchist,” Ms. Paley was a lifelong advocate of liberal causes. During the Vietnam War, she was jailed several times for antiwar protests; in later years, she lobbied for women’s rights, against nuclear proliferation and, most recently, against the war in Iraq.

Good strong tea! My type of family.

So, the story.

I have wondered what sort of friends I will have left in my old age. Will they be the same friends I have today? With the pace of life and our abilities to relocate and my/our personal/joint desire to live our life someday elsewhere – it seems that say in 40 years, my friends will be different.

When I sit back an look at the circle of friends I have today, I could call it modest. Even that would be a stretch. Could I consider my co-workers “friends”? I suppose a couple could be considered the sort that I could keep in touch with over the years.

I don’t know though if I really have what could be called a true “friend”. I mean all the guys from school are there but as far as a day-to-day friend – that type...? I have a very close relationship with my brother-in-law, and I do call him a friend – but is he only my friend because he is married to my sister? He does so much for us, and provides a ton of support where needed, I can tell him secrets, and I can drink with him...but I think that he is considered family, kinda knocks him into a different category. I mean, there are certain things that I can’t tell him.

I don’t know, I don’t think I really have what I would call a true friend anymore.

Perhaps the person that I am, and the life that I have lived in the past as allowed me to be comfortable with this.

Yeah, it’s OK.

Breathe man...breathe.

Ups and downs - Anger and pleasure - Happiness and sadness - Hours without end. Confused sharpness with a blurry edge.

And all the while – I didn’t read. I didn’t use what I know comforts me.

The weight of these stories pressed themselves upon me daily.

I’m back now from a trip that’s been too long - but with a refocused energy.

It’s simple – it’s just time to read.

Lemon Tree – Curt Johnson

Curtis Johnson - May 26, 1928 - June 9, 2008

I think what I enjoyed the most about “Lemon Tree” was just the raw honesty of a man’s life that Johnson illustrates.

The frustrated complicated relationships, the substance abuse, the emotional abuse and the quest to reinvent oneself.

There were times in my life, and times when I was younger when I wished that I could change who I was. I remember in grade school wishing that I was taller. That my nose wasn’t so big, that I had better skin, that I was more muscular. As an adolescent, I think those wishes and desires are normal.

As an adult, we are placed into positions where we can change who we are. We just need to seize the opportunity. Now, I don’t mean that one should go about changing one’s life or leading one’s life as the main character does in “Lemon Tree”. Change should happen where there is minimal and possibly zero negative impact to others. The character sees flaws in himself, his life and seeks to reinvent himself. He does so through cheating on his wife, and abandoning all that once was his life by relocating to another country.

My idea of change in life should be accomplished through self improvement. Education, health, the expansion of ones awareness.

When I left for Romania, I was asked by someone very close to me if I was running away from something. This person in fact was acting a bit selfishly and attempting to convince me that leaving was a bad move. I fought back against the accusation that I was running (perhaps I was). I felt that I had reached a point in my life that I needed a change to happen. I was 26, and I knew that my immediate future did not lie in Norfolk. I felt that the future for me was out there, someplace in the world. I sought out improvement through volunteering to help others, and in doing so I changed so much that the man that departed Virginia was not the same man that returned.

It took 2 ½ years, and that was plenty enough time. I helped, not hurt others. I improved myself rather than injured myself or others. I grew rather than deteriorated.

Looking back, I feel though that I could have accomplished so much more. I could have not drunk so much. I could have lifted weights and come back a hulk! I could have read every book I wish I could read now.

But, I did what I did, and in the end, I am all the better for it.

Perhaps there will be an opportunity to change my life sometime down the road. In fact, I can do it whenever I feel like it. It just takes discipline and motivation. I can educate myself, I can learn a new language, I can become healthier, I can start writing, I can read more...all of these things can be done without damage to my loved ones.

It just takes responsible moves.

In 3 years I will be 40. There will be plenty of eyes on me to see if I buy a red convertible. Problem is, people know me too well and know that I would be satisfied with a bike.

Score 8 out of 10.

Into the Wind – Robert Henderson

Robert Henderson March 19, 1906 - December 3, 1998

Before I enter into writing about this story, just a quick observation.

I’ve often wondered about the placement of the stories within these volumes. I naturally (at least natural to me) thought that the volume editor would place the stories in a specific order. It would seem that perhaps they would like to set some sort of theme...family, deaths, depression, stages of life – etc.

Maybe they felt that placing the stories into the volume with their most favorite at the beginning would ensure that a particular story would be read – thinking that a potential reader of the volume would purchase the book, make it through several shorts and then move along to something else.

A funny set of recent coincidences took place that prompted me to think about this...but I have a strange feeling that I have written about the story placement before.

Since I read these stories in order, after each story, I look back at the brief biographical information about the author. I noticed that with the current volume, all the authors were listed in alphabetical order and at the moment, I questioned this because my memory (which may have been incorrect) told me that the author bio’s appeared in the order that the stories appeared in the book. I checked the table of contents, and Elkin had the stories lined up in the book alphabetically by the author’s last name. Hum –...did Oates or Solotaroff?

Nope – their picks were not listed in alphabetic order.

Now since I have a bitter taste in my mouth concerning the picks by Elkin, I have created a little dialog between him and Ravenel.

“Hi Stanley – this is Shanon”

“Yeah whadda ya want”

“ Well Stanley, there’s just one last thing concerning your selections for this year’s Best American Short Stories volume”.

“Yeah what”

“Well, is there are particular order that you would like the stories to appear?”

“I don’t give a shit”. click.

Simple. –

Now, I imagined this little dialogue before I heard 2 interviews with Tobias Wolff.

The first was on the edrants.com site under the Bat Segundo interviews. Bat – who is an absolutely incredible reader just steamrolls over Wolff concerning his writing, and some similarities that appear in several of his stories. Wolff reacts pretty defensively...which is what I would expect of him – but it honestly makes him look like a jerk. I think he could have relaxed a bit more...but then again, this is Wolff.

Anyway, I’m off track –

Bat asks him about the placement of his stories in his collection “ Our Story Begins” and Wolff gives his reasons why he had the stories placed in no particular order. Wolff feels that the average reader of a collection does not read the collection from front to back. They pick it up and look for a story that might suit them for the moment, a story that fits into a desired length (shorter for bedtime) or if it is a volume with a variety of authors, one might be looking for a work by a specific writer.

I then listened to the Writers on Writing podcast which featured an interview with Wolff and I made it into about minute 3 when he responded to a question with an answer almost word for word from the Bat interview citing authors, books and even the same little anecdote within the answer. –Ugh – man, he was on the circuit promoting his book. Bummer.

So, I suppose that I shouldn’t look to deep into the placement of these stories because I really have no idea behind the decision making process...or if one even exists concerning this. It is my opinion that the individual who compilies the stories should consciously decide where the stories go based on a message he/she wishes to impart. – But that’s me.

“Into the Wind”

Henderson told Contemporary author: "I have always moved toward writing, even in childhood. Though making a living has sometimes intervened (along with indolence), writing has been a basic preoccupation and still is. It is a very slow process, and the results have been fairly small. Aside from some early efforts, I have published chiefly in the New Yorker--essays, paragraphs for the `Notes and Comments' section, and a number of short stories."

Here is a pleasant story. It held my attention and once again, when there is a male character that is mourning or reflecting on the life he once had with his now deceased wife, I seem to really be drawn into the story.

I love my wife deeply. We have been married for 9 years and 3 months. We have known each other since October of 1998. I remember the first time I laid eyes on her.

The exact moment, the level of light, the temperature in the hallway and room.

It is a memory that I reflect on enough in an attempt to permanently sear it into my mind.

Part of the motivation outside of love that provoked me to ask her to marry me was the feeling that I couldn’t live without her. I couldn’t possibly move forward in my life without her. At the time in which I wanted her to become my wife, there were some pretty well defined paths before me. Well, actually 2 paths. I know that if I had chosen the path that I am not on now, my life would have been miserable. I now that she is responsible for many of the good things that have happened in my recent past. Her ability to correct my course “on the fly” is incredible.

I can actually feel an ache in my chest when I imagine my life without her and when I encounter stories like “Into the Wind” the ache returns.

I often think about our final days, and I selfishly wish that when our time comes, I would be the one to go first.

But then I think further into that thought and I hurt because I know the pain that she would feel, and I couldn’t possibly imagine her living with that heartache.

Her – staring out of a dusty window at empty tree branches- mind empty, long grey wisps of hair falling across her thin face. A soft audible whimper escaping between breaths – legs weak and knees trembling from lack of nourishment.

Me- a stooped grey man, dressed in a faded flannel shirt, worn at the elbows. Cloudy eyes behind smudged glasses, mouth agape, leaking scotch fumes.

-Alone.

The wind that I would be facing as I paddled my boat alone would just be too much. I haven’t the wisdom or strength yet in life to propel my boat to its destination alone.

Crying.

Score – 9 out of 10.

My two worlds