Disneyland – Barbara Gowdy

Several thoughts came to me as I read this short story and of course most of them centered around fatherhood (the father plays a major role in this story).

There have been a few times over the past year – only a year because it’s just been that amount of time that I can really communicate with W.- that I have told W. that we will do something “later” or if he behaves a certain way we will “go get ice cream” and as the day plays out, I cannot act upon what I said we would do.  W. is still too young right now to remember what I told him a few hours ago, but that ability is starting to grow in him and soon he will hold me accountable and I will have to stop using this behavior modification technique and will also have to start following thought with my statements…and of course be more selective.

The thought and threat of nuclear war was something that I obsessed over while growing up.  I think I began thinking about it right around the divorce and I’m pretty sure that you could directly link my thoughts of impending inhalation with the loss of my father to his work.  There were times that I mulled over survival scenarios and as I grew older I educated myself, and discovered that I lived in a city that hosted a massive number of military bases which made us target #1…I soon knew that there would be no surviving.  Just that bright light.  There would be no fallout shelter that could save me or my family. I started to accept the fact that death would come fast and that I wouldn’t even know it.  Perhaps I should have lived my younger years a little more recklessly knowing that I could be flash-killed at any second…

Finally, and again back to fatherhood – M. and I are co-captains of our family ship, but as a male, there is that sense that a little more weight for the steering may rest on my shoulders. Of course this is just an illusion caused by the now dwindling testosterone that still manages to course though me – but I know in my head that I have the responsibility to take my family down the right path. 

 

I don’t think I would be responsible if I didn’t think and question if the decisions I made daily concerning M. And W. were the right ones.  Then, I must also think about not over thinking.

Think about that. 

Why I Decided to Kill Myself and Other Jokes – Douglas Glover

I paused as I read this short story and breathed a sigh of relief.  With this story – I felt that I am finally moving out of the 80s.  It’s the first short that gave me the feeling that I’m moving into a new sphere of writing. 

 

Now I don’t know exactly when this story came to Glover (perhaps it was in ’85)…but it has the feel of the 90s. 

 

I’m not trying to disrespect Carver, Gardner and that crew…my favorites from the 80s, but I have been itching for the comfort of a good story from the 90s. 

 

I’m not schooled in the styles of writing, I can only classify by feeling –

And the 90s were good for and to me.

 

I’ve written about the lives that I’ve lived and in August 1990, a huge line was drawn between two segments of my lives.

I can still taste those days – my undergraduate years - and this story slides in perfectly with those times.

I don’t know what stories will line up behind this story in the rest of the anthology, but a line has finally been crossed. 

Worlds have shifted and it’s good.

I thought about placing some selected sentences from the story in this little write-up to try and paint why I have the connection to the story that I do – but going over it again, I can’t pull just once sentence, one paragraph – one section.

The story needs to be read and appreciated in its entirety. 

 

And why am I feeling this way about this story now?

Over the last year, I have read, perhaps I have just noticed more, writers and critics placing importance on the “present time” when reading a story.

I have made plenty of references to it especially with stories that deal with young children and how that they impact me differently now that I am a father.

Perhaps I am longing for the easy days of being 18.  I’m middle aged now, with quite a bit of responsibilities.  But where I am in my life now, I wouldn’t change for the world. 

 

Now, if I had the ability to return to those days and correct a few mistakes…sure, I’d welcome that opportunity. 

But I am reading this story with the mind of today…and it takes me back, and this is a good thing and I appreciate Glover for providing the words to allow this little bit of time travel.

The Concert Party – Mavis Gallant

Let me first apologize to all the Mavis Gallant fans out there.

 

I’m sorry.  I’m sorry that I just can’t get into Mavis.

No matter how hard I’ve tried.  No matter how hard I’ve tried - not to try - and to just let the story flow into me…I just can’t get her.

And with that, it’s probably best that I say nothing more.

Edie: A Life – Harriet Doerr

More interested in the author than the story.  Happy to find that Harriet published her first novel at the age of 73 in 1983 and with that novel, she went on to win a national Book Award.

 

It’s never too late!

I found this particular story a bit dry – I didn’t really connect with it but what I took away from the experience was learning about Doerr – the author.

   

There is a rich interview with the author on the Stanford University website (she finished her degree at the age of 67) and it seems that she simply wrote about what she knew…and with that, she was discovered.

In the Contributor’s Notes section in the back of this edition of BASS, she simply states that Edie was an actual person – someone she “knew when she was young”. 

Flowers of Boredom – Rick DeMarinis

Sometimes it isn't the complete story but just a paragraph, maybe a sentence or two, that sticks in your head.

I found that with this particular story.  I didn't see one overall idea or message that I could readily pull from it (of course one could always surface later) but a nice passage below as well as part of the Contributor’s Notes will do for this entry.

“Nobody knows jack-shit,” Voss is saying to Lamar.  “If you are going to stay in this business, you’ve got to remember that.  Something else, something besides men and machines gets all this fancy work done.”

…

“I see what you mean,” Lamar says.

“No you don’t. You really don’t,” Voss says.  “What I am telling you is that there is a great dark…consensus…that sweeps things along to their inevitable conclusion.  There is an intelligence behind it, but, believe me, it’s not human.  It is the intelligence of soil, the thing that lifts trees and flowers out of the ground.  I am too astonished and thrilled to be frightened by it.”

And then in the Contributor’s notes section Demarinis writes:

“I believe thought processes are primitive.  Logic and reason mask a dark topography rutted by glaciers of superstition.  We prefer intuition over analysis.  Reason tells me smart men with blueprints and serious purpose create ICBMs.  My limited experience and my intuition tell me something else.  One of the results of this conviction is “The Flowers of Boredom.” All this happened decades ago.  It still astonishes me.”

And thinking further on this, I can take the above personally as I work in my life and in the life of my family to move away from the “dark consensus”. 

I think about it quite a bit actually and I believe that it is even more prevalent and powerful in our lives than it was when this story was written in the late 80s.

White Angel – Michael Cunningham

White Angel, presented in this collection, is another example of how this wonderful little exercise of mine presents me with authors of true quality.  Michael Cunningham went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for his novel “The Hours”.  He presents, and Margaret Atwood has presented readers with an emotionally charged story first published in The New Yorker.  In the Contributor’s Notes at the back of The BASS, Cunningham explains that the central – focal - genesis-  of this story came from an incident that happened in his home town when he was thirteen, and that it had been alive in his head for some 30 years and eventually developed into this story.

It's not that I am beginning to fear these types of stories but I do find myself becoming more anxious after reading them.  Stories when children are horribly injured, abused or killed - man, they are difficult. 

The reader knows from pretty early in the story that the main character's brother will die.

Reading of the relationship between the brothers serves as a way to strengthen the emotional punch when the brother does die.  It hurts – even though you know it’s coming.

Concerning his death and they manner of his death, perhaps this is where most of my fear comes from in these types of stories.

It is a death that comes during an ordinary moment in our lives.  Rushing towards a closed sliding glass patio door, bursting through the glass, having a shard of that glass sever the jugular and bleeding out on the living room floor.

It's horrific.

An accident. A mistake.

And you reflect on your life and remember all of the instances that you were in a position where you could have been that boy - bleeding out on the living room floor.

And then you think about your son.  How he might grow up like you.  And how he might be in situations where he would run towards that closed sliding glass patio door...and you can't sleep at night thinking about this.  And all of these awful scenes that haven't even happened in his life.  But could happen.  And are happening right now… in your imagination.

A lump forms in your throat your eyes glass over in the darkness as you set the scene so perfectly –

And you obsess over his safety. You try not to hover but he's so little, so innocent.  He needs to be protected.  But the years will pass and he will run further down the street from you...away from your protective arms. Towards that closed sliding glass patio door.  .

He’s getting older now and faster and faster and faster - always running from you - from your protective arms towards that closed sliding glass patio door.  You cry out for him to STOP!

And that’s it exactly – his life, our life – this life - a closed glass patio door.  Normally we approach it, slide it to the side and walk into the living room.  But there are moments when we – or someone we love runs through that closed sliding glass patio door. And things are never the same after that moment.

Years pass, you’re both be much older.  Your hair has grayed out completely - lying in bed - still thinking about him running towards... 

And there is no way of every catching him.  All you can do is watch.  And hope that he slides it to the side.

Parenthood.

"If you've never wept and want to, have a child." 

Incarnations of Burned Children – David Foster Wallace - of course.