Bad News/Good News

There were many bitter things about my divorce.
I especially resented that Mr. Ex didn't fess up and tell me that I could have gone to grad school on the moon. His secret romance was in full bloom by the time I came to my geeze-the-nest-is-nigh-unto-empty senses and began applyingto MFA programs. Depite the fact I had teachers who wanted me to shoot for a full on residential program at UC Irvine, I couldn't see how that would fit into my married life. Low res seemed like the wifely thing to do. I applied to 3 programs and got into all of them, but I once again went with the wifely option and chose a program in Mr. Ex's home state of Nebraska.  A new-ish rather unproven program.
When I left for my first residency the day after Christmas I was still living without furniture in my new place. I had a wall unit made from moving boxes and two blue nylon camp chairs in my living room. I was sick by the time the plane landed. My throat felt like it had a dirty sock lodged in it, and I couldn't breathe through my nose. I downed two Lemon Drops in the bar and bought dried mangoe slices coated with chili pepper  during my layover in Vegas and added an upset stomach to my aliments. I thought the tonic part of the gin and tonics might soothe my stomach on the plane ride to Omaha.
I did not want to be in Nebraska.
I couldn't talk because my throat was sore. I couldn't think  or read because my brokeness had traveled north from my heart and rented a room in my  brain. I couldn't write.
But things got better. Friends. Amazing mentors. A realization that my metaphors still live in the midwest.
And now this: the program I chose solely because of Mr. Ex comes in at #11 http://www.pw.org/content/2011_mfa_rankings_the_top_ten_lowresidency_programs in a new set of rankings.
And I graduated from there, quite happily. So, gee, Mr. Ex, thanks!

I do think it would be damn decent of Mr. Ex to reimburse me for my tuition though. I worked two jobs to put him through UCLA law school.

Waiting for a Sign

"What are you going to do now that you've got your Master's Degree?" people have asked.
 "I'm going to write," I say. And I am. I have a memoir to shop, a novel and 2 short story collections to finish.
But also, I feel like I'm waiting for a sign. My post-divorce life has been so completely filled and shaped by being in school that I feel a little bit lost.

I gave my graduate reading yesterday. I read from the novel that was my master's thesis and it went well.
As is customary, I began by thanking faculty, my mentors, family, and friends, and as I stood at the microphone another line of thanks inserted itself into my thoughts though I didn't speak it aloud. Thank you Mr. Ex for being from Nebraska. Thank you for continuing to deceive me when I chose which MFA program I would attend. Thank you for remaining silent when I stood in the doorway between our dining room and kitchen, looked you in the eye and said that I wanted Nebraska connections in case we ended up retiring there. You have returned to me my earliest metaphors---open fields and soil, the hum of insects in summer, the crunch and squeak of boots on snow in winter, birds that we don't have in California.
Beginning the program while you were in the thick of planning your wedding I thought might kill me, but it didn't. So thank you, Mr. Ex, for leading me here. Thank you.

This morning in one of the last lectures before graduation, this quote from Louise Gluck was presented:
"Personal circumstance may prompt art but the actual making of art is a revenge on circumstance."

Blogging is the Porn of Writing or Journey to the Center...

I'm in Nebraska at my final MFA residency. I graduate in 6 days. But right now I'm listening to Los Angeles's own poetry goddess Kate Gale. She's here in Nebraska lecturing to me and my fellow students about writing. Journey to the Center of the Earth is the title of her lecture. Which I take to mean we are looking for that lake of fire inside us that fuels our writing.

Here are her rules for writing: #1. Find what sets you off as a writer.  #2. After that fuse is lit let your mind go wherever it wants to.  Don’t stop yourself.  #3. Keep writing past that painful sticky place instead of wandering there forever. Don’t stop with the beating. Go past the beating. Write what happens next on the other side of that painful place. There’s something else past the pain.  #4.  No matter what you are writing, you are going to write something really good. Don’t save the good stuff for something else. Don’t hold anything back ever. There’s more where that came from. You are a fountain of amazing ideas.

Here's what isn't writing: Emailing. Blogging. Sending work out.

But she likes blogging. She has a blog.  http://kategale.wordpress.com/  She says if you blog you should  blog everyday. It's practice writing. Warm-up writing. But she also says that blogging is the porn of writing. After all, you can drink while blogging, she says.
Imagine. Me--a porn queen.

So what I'm taking away is this. Blog every day while drinking. Which means I should write first and blog and drink second. New mantra: Write first. Blog and drink second. Write first. Blog and drink second.

The Art of Finding

In roughly one month, I will finish my MFA in Creative Writing so I'm obsessing a little on this milestone in my "new life."
This advice from the poet Linda Gregg seems applicable for prose writers, too. 
She's written this piece, The Art of Finding, as a prose poem. This is how it begins:


I believe that poetry at its best is found rather than written.
Traditionally, and for many people even today, poems have been
admired chiefly for their craftsmanship and musicality, the
handsomeness of language and the abundance of similes, along with 
the patterning and rhymes. I respect and enjoy all that, but I would 
not have worked so hard and so long at my poetry if it were primarily 
the production of well-made objects, just as I would not have sacrificed 
so much for love if love were mostly about pleasure. 


If you'd like to read the rest follow the link above.

Stressing: Here's Why

The joint assets remain undivided.

My mother is in pain and I can actually kind of feel it in my body.

I haven't filed taxes yet for '08 because my accountant wanted to wait until there was a final financial settlement on the divorce. The extension deadline approaches.

My dear Aunt Mille is in pain and I might be feeling that, too.

My health insurance application is in some bureaucratic limbo and my coverage through Mr. Ex's law firm runs out Sept. 1.

My thesis is due in November.

My flying anxiety came back on my last flight and I have to fly again Sunday.

Mr. Ex has met the magic number we set way back when & now I have to pay my own attorney fees.

I really don't like being in L.A. but the man I love lives here.

I just don't understand why Mr. Ex is seeking all this bitterness.

Impermanence

After a day spent in lectures, workshops, and readings, I take pleasure in returning to my hotel room. The bed has been made and the pillows lie against the headboard like sheets of blank paper. I have wine here and a ripe tomato from a colleague's garden. I have books and an easy chair that faces the window, a desk, and a sink that shines as though it's been Windexed. None of these things have memories or history attached. When I leave, someone else will sleep in the bed. The sweet flesh of the tomato will be eaten, the wine drunk.

Write this Tree

This is a catalpa tree. It's real. I've been walking by it every morning as I trudge the mile or so from the Lied Center, which houses my MFA residency, into the center of the small town of Nebraska City. There's a coffee house there that makes a delicious latte and that's how I start my day before I sink into the world of fiction writing. The tree is an enthralling sight as the sun lights up its dangling green bean-like pods. Someday, I'll probably have a catalpa tree in a short story or a novel. I like the way the word, "catalpa" sounds and the way the pods make the tree look like it's all fancied-up, wearing earrings. Maybe there'll be a wild party under a catalpa tree or maybe a murder. Maybe I'll invent a girl named Catalpa. Fact into fiction.

My current novel has a husband in it--an L.A. attorney who makes tons of money in a high-profile firm that does entertainment law. The law firm isn't actually that good though. All the partners make most of their money because they're involved in the porn industry, and the husband (in the novel) gets more and more corrupted as time goes by and doesn't even come to the hospital to take the wife home after she has a miscarriage. He's judgmental, aloof, thinks he's always on the moral high ground. He's an impeccable dresser, and so fastidious he wipes the rim of his wine glass after every sip.

See how it works? Fact into fiction.

The Numbers: Part Two

Graduate School: 4th (and final) semester. Critical thesis pages completed: 41. Creative thesis pages completed: 82. Thesis pages left to write: minimum 43. Thesis pages left to revise and number of times to revise them: infinite. Number of cookies consumed today in a fit of stress: 4. Cups of coffee: 4. Glasses of wine: count not yet finalized. Number of semesters I supported Mr. Ex through law school: 6.

The Numbers

It's just a couple of weeks short of two years since my husband of 30 years left me for a 34-year-old with a single-digit dress size and expensive taste in shoes.  14 months later they were married.  4 1/2 weeks after the wedding I finally began getting my temporary alimony.  5 months after that he changed his mind about his bonuses and said he'd consent to giving me 40 % and he'd reimburse me for my grad school tuition (I put him through law school.)  But he has yet to come up with the numbers we need to divide our community property and finalize my spousal support.  I asked for the information required 9 days ago and since then I've emailed him a couple more times.  But I've got zero in the answer department.  In 6 weeks his new baby will arrive. How much longer do I have to wait until I can say this is over?

I'm Working On It

The new me will have an MFA. I don't care that I'm too old with too short of a resume to find a "real" teaching job. Whenever that conversation starts and someone asks me why I've gone back to school, I tell them I'm going to teach creative writing in the prisons.  I tell them I have connections.  

The new me will keep in touch with friends. Drop an email, write on a Facebook wall, buy a plane ticket or take a road trip. I'll be the one to suggest lunch or dinner instead of waiting for the phone to ring.

The new me will work harder, review what I've learned more often and try to remember it. I'll read sitting up instead of lying down in bed so the words have a chance to settle into my brain instead of sinking into my pillow and mingling with down and fluff.

The new me will tell my children I love them every time I see them and  in every phone conversation. Every time. Grand children, too. 

The new me will call my mother more often. Even if I have to over enunciate and speak more loudly than I'd like. The new me will visit her at least 4 times a year.

The new me might settle down and stay in L.A.--eventually. Or somewhere else.

Strategically Placed

A lot of post-it notes have come down off the wall above my desk. Little ideas have become paragraphs or pages, and in some cases, are in the wastebasket where they belong. I have a decent draft of a short story, I think, and it has nothing to do with divorce or marriage which proves something good is happening here. I'm getting closer to sending Beneath the Water back to my agent--pretty sure that'll happen Monday afternoon. I have a whole new beginning to the 2nd memoir which is about you-know-what, but it's going swell just the same.  I did a critical essay on a Tobias Wolf story I adored and tonight, I'm just going to jumble up my damn novel like my MFA mentor has asked me to. I'm two weeks into this residency and I haven't felt this good in ages (about writing, anyway--but yeah, about most other things, too.) I have concluded that my brain does not work in L.A.  Too much history, too many Freeway exits where I think, hmm that's how you get to... and we used to always... and I remember when we.... the whole place looks like him and the scent of jasmine or rosemary smells like the night air coming into every bedroom we ever slept in.  You know what it smells like here?  Leaves. Frost. Stars. And absolutely nothing.