PW and RB

• Read several articles in the new Poets & Writers Magazine last night. Excellent article about Junot Diaz. It took him eleven years to publish a new book after his debut fiction Drown. It was instructive and inspiring to read of how he found his next book topic. I feel I am going through a similar experience. A big topic I love and want to write about (Ohio River), but smaller voice calling to me: "Write me, write me."
• Read Downstream From Trout Fishing in America by Keith Abbott last night. Parts of it very good; missing a lot of heart and soul, though. Maybe I'm just spoiled by Ianthe's beautiful and generous recollection of her father.

I release you...

One thing that started to bother me about my blog is that I started thinking too much about my readers.

Now, dear readers, I do love you. However, I began to worry too much about how I was dispensing information. I felt I had to present a coherent idea each time. And that began to put too much pressure on me.

I was afraid to be fragmentary or brief, for fear readers would roll their eyes and say, "She expects a comment on this?"

Therefore, I say to you, dear reader, I release you. I release you from all responsibility. You must not feel you have to comment on any of my entries. And if an entry looks esoteric, nonsensical, mediocre, tedious, or just too strange, just shrug your shoulders and go on.

I came to the conclusion that sometimes I might just want to jot down fragmentary thoughts or brief statements about what I did or saw that day. I came to this conclusion after reading Ianthe Brautigan's memoir of her father, Richard Brautigan. She reveals that Richard kept cryptic records about his days. Reading them, I was very touched. In a way, his short notes brought me closer to the man than lengthy autobiographical excursions would have. They also open me up, my mind, my heart. Hardly any adjectives, no sensory details. Just short, simple, declarative sentences. Elementary. True. Here are some examples:

Tuesday, September 2, 1975
My daughter and I talked about the FBI

Friday, September 19, 1975
I had a pleasant time with my daughter.

Friday, September 21, 1975
I had a long and very rewarding conversation with my daughter.

Friday, September 26, 1975
--We drove over to Bozeman to take my daughter to the dentist. She was in a very chatty mood.
--I went for a walk with my daughter down into the big fields, and I had a long talk with her.

Thursday, October 16, 1975
I bought a waffle iron for Ianthe, she's wanted one for a long time.

Saturday, October 25, 1975
Ianthe and I went into town and got some bulbs for planting. I want some daffodils in the spring.

The last two tug on me, in particular. It is touching to me that he bought his daughter the waffle iron. And it says something about his capacity for hope that he wanted to plant daffodil bulbs.

I am going to start posting some entries like this, and I'm going to see where the process takes me. It's an experiment. Maybe it will free my mind. I hope to discover some important truths this way.

Don't worry. You don't have to say anything at all. I release you. By releasing you, I am releasing myself.

This is one change I am making. I want to make more. More on that later.

Changes

Drama of Life and Death. Theresa Williams. Collage.

I look back at the person I was when I first started blogging and I feel she is very different from the person I am now. Once the blog fulfilled a need I had to figure out who I was artistically. I'd pushed a book out into the world but felt lost about my where to go next with my writing. I was full of doubts. I felt bogged down in my academic work. I was trying to find myself artistically and professionally.

Lately, I've been thinking about quitting the blog. I've been thinking I don't need it anymore. I'm starting to feel grounded in my writing life. My teaching excites me in ways it hasn't for a long time. I have more ideas for stories than I will ever be able to write in a lifetime. I've found out why I write and why I write about what I write about. Many of the friends I started out with in the blogging world have disappeared. Their interests, too, have changed, and they don't come here anymore. I feel a pulling away where I once felt a strong connection to others out there. This place is visited less all the time; the comments are sparse. It may be time for a change. That may mean it's time for me to quit.

On the other hand, I don't want to be a quitter. I need to sort through my feelings about all this.

If I stay, this blog will no doubt change from what it has been. It may become more an academic exploration of subjects I'm interested in, a beginning place for some things I'd like to flesh out. It may become more about my teaching, too, than it once was. I just don't know.

I'm staying for now. I'm thinking it over. I'm thinking out loud. I probably shouldn't mention it, really, but if I don't, then I'm perpetuating a sort of lie and holding it inside myself, and that has never been good for me.

Classes start on Monday. I have finished all three of my syllabi, and there are many new people who will come into my life once again. We will go on a voyage together and hopefully create bonds, and good memories.

I am going to California in September, to Big Sur, to teach workshops at Esalen again. It was overcast today, breezy. The humidity was low, the air crisp and cool. Such days make me feel alive.

I read an entire book this afternoon and evening, something I haven't done in a long time. I've been picking up books for weeks and only been able to tolerate them in short bursts. My thoughts slide away and I have to put the books aside. But I read Ianthe Brautigan's memoir straight through today. It is about how she dealt with the suicide death of her famous father, Richard Gary Brautigan. I ordered the book after doing a short review at a book group at Library Thing called books compared. Doing the review made me curious about Richard Brautigan again. I have always felt a strange connection to him, a connection I've welcomed but that has always made me a bit uneasy, too. Doing the review and reading Ianthe's book, You Can't Catch Death, makes me want to write about the connection I have with Brautigan as an attempt to understand it.

I've met some new friends at Library Thing. I even started a group over there called Art is Life. I've looked in on message boards and groups before and have been frankly appalled at what I saw: a lot of cruelty, sniping at each other, and worthless conversation. I've never seen a group I wanted to belong to. But people at Library Thing are more like I am, I feel. I am at home there.

I'm not quitting the blog yet. I haven't decided yet what to do. That is the truth.