BJ's Blog

I was beginning to lose hope on this one…25th try!

After declining to publish my complete chapbook, Unraveling, 8th & Atlas Publishing kindly invited me to share a portion of my work. I chose Normal.

I always read books written by women, but this month I want to highlight those I have read and plan to read in March.

1. Sheryl St. Germain, 50 Miles
   This is a powerful book. I started it and didn’t think I could finish it–too depressing. But I really loved the way St. Germain combines essays to tell the story of her family’s addictions and the impacts the educational and mental health care systems had on them. Also, the hope she/we can experience through writing.
2. Abigail Thomas, Still Life at Eighty: The Next Interesting Thing
   I’ve already read several of these essays. A fabulous collection of wise musings from the grand dame of CNF.
3. Kathleen Collins, Study in Hysteria
   While early in, I can see the possibilities for this book about a woman finding her way in a world that views her as crazy.
4. Liz Cheney, Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning
   I’ve had this book for awhile and have not had the guts to read it. Now that super Tuesday has confirmed the inevitable, I vow to confront the realities Cheney exposed–realities that so many in our country are unwilling to face.
5. Tracy Marcella Addy et al., What Inclusive Instructors Do
   Though there is more than one author of this book, the first is female, so it counts. I’ll read and discuss it with colleagues at WSU. A fitting text given our state legislature’s dismantling of DEI divisions in higher education. We’ll need to a new term to describe the now subversive work of inclusivity on campus.

PROMPT #7

Recast your story as a fairy tale. Begin with “Once upon a time.” How does this framework help you see the people/characters, places, and events in your story differently? And how does it shift your position as a narrator? What do the characters want, and what are the obstacles in their way? Who’s good, and who’s evil? Who gets to live happily ever after (and who doesn’t … and why does that matter)?  

This approach might also help you introduce or develop new themes or find a more universal relevance. What’s the moral or the lesson of the story? Where does magic happen? 

Get down as much of the story as you can in 20 minutes. Stop for the day.

For some reason, I really don’t want to write a response to this prompt. So I will leave it here. Maybe one day, after we all lived happily ever after.

PROMPT #8

Find a moment in one of your stories that allows you to identify where a change occurs. If you wrote about a memory, think about how you felt then versus how you feel now. What changed? 

As close as possible to the most dramatic moment of your story, add a paragraph that starts with “Then.” Write another paragraph that starts with “Now.” See where else this path might lead you.

Get down as much of the story as you can in 20 minutes. Stop for the day. We’ll be back at it on Thursday.

Again, not really feeling this prompt. Perhaps if I wrote fiction? Still, I guess I should try…one day.

PROMPT #9

Start by choosing one of the main characters from your story—a person at the center of your story (it could be you).  Take a sheet of paper, and—reading through your draft—make a list of everything you know about that character, based on what’s in the draft of the story as currently written.

Once you’ve reached the end of the story, consider the list you’ve made.

• Is there information or context that you haven’t included yet but that might be helpful to readers?
• Have you explained the nature of the character’s relationship to other characters or to yourself?
• What does this character look like or sound like? How old are they? 

Then, go back to your story and think about how you might layer in more of these details. What do they add to your story? 

Spend no more than 30 minutes total on this exercise and stop for the day.

I can see how this prompt would be helpful for my memoir, which is sitting in a folder with lots of TBDs.

PROMPT #10

Use the same story as yesterday. Grab a separate piece of paper, and draw a timeline that maps the chronology of the story you’re telling. Ideally, your story isn’t organized completely chronologically, but your timeline should be. What event (from your story) happened earliest? What happened next? What was the last thing that happened? Include each separate event/step on one side of your timeline.

On the other side, add time stamps: when did each event happen? These time stamps might be very broad (say, if your story spans years) or very small (if your story spans an hour) or somewhere in between.  

Then, looking back at your draft, consider these questions: 

• What’s not on the timeline that should be there? 
• What is on the timeline that doesn’t need to be? 
• Does the way you’ve organized events in your draft make sense? Where does your story begin and end, in relation to the actual chronological timeline?
• Are there other possible starting/ending spots? 

Work for 30 minutes and stop for the day. See you back here on Monday.

Ditto. When I get back to my memoir, I will revisit these prompts.

PROMPT #3

What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever found? Where were you, and where was the thing? What was it? What happened next?

Get down as much of the story as you can in 20 minutes. Stop for the day.

While walking my dogs in Mount Ogden Park, I found a used condom in the sand at the bottom of the kids’ slide. I hadn’t brought my children to the playground in several years–they were too old to want to swing on the swings or slide on the slide–but I was struck by the placement of the condom. At the bottom of the slide. Difficult for a toddler to miss as she was sliding down. Difficult for a parent to miss as they waited for their child to arrive at the bottom. Who leaves a used condom in a playground? I was glad that whoever was having sex used a condom. One point for protection. I mean, good for them! But why leave it there? I assume it was dark when they were doing the deed. Sex on the sand. Perhaps the couple pretended they were on a beach…someplace tropical and warm. Maybe they’d brought a blanket–such forethought!–and when they were done copulating in the sand shook out the blanket, forgetting the used condom in their haste to tidy up and get away. A reasonable explanation. But I kept thinking the leaving of the condom was somehow intentional. “Here. We did this act here. Where your children play.” The teenagers sticking it to their parents. “You won’t let us have sex at home, so we’ll go someplace you like to bring little kids during the day.” Or showing them they’d grown up and had new ways to play. A playground for all ages: the toddlers and the teens. Even grandparents, who may bring their grandchildren to play. What would the teens think if they knew their grandparents might find the used condom? Oh my word! Life’s rich pageant. The circle of life. I like to imagine the young people having a quick–obviously quick, because they want to get down to business–conversation about where they should do it. The restroom? No, too disgusting. The golf course? No, too open. The back of the car? No, too cramped. The swing? No, too awkward. The slide? No, too dangerous. The sand? Yes, just right. Let’s do it there. Here. Where the children play. Where the toddlers lose their pacifiers. Where the ground is forgiving enough to allow us to enjoy the moment. Did they enjoy the moment? I wonder if they bragged to their friends at school the next day. “We did it in the playground!” Their friends would ask, “how was it?” The girl would say “cold but nice”–what else is she going to say? She liked it? The boy would say “it was awesome!”–what else is he going to say? It was too cold? I imagine it was a girl and boy and not a boy and boy–wouldn’t they use a bathroom stall? And two girls would need a condom, would they? Look at me stereotyping, making assumptions, jumping to conclusions. I’m telling a story about a used condom found in a playground while walking my dogs in my neighborhood park.I can say whatever I want. I can believe what I want to believe.

PROMPT #4

Describe a specific sound from your past. What was it? What did it sound like? Why do you remember it? Try to focus on one specific instance of the sound. Where were you? What else was going on in your life—or the world?

Get down as much of the story as you can in 20 minutes. Stop for the day. We’ll pick it up again on Thursday.

Closing my eyes, trying to remember a sound, and I’m worried that I can’t…can’t remember a specific sound, can’t place a particular sound from my past. But I can remember the sound of

• Bubba’s barking
• Carlos’ conversations
• Henry’s howls
• Dad’s sneezes–so loud and jarring
• The engine in the VW bus
• The buoy bells in Cold Spring Harbor
• Cottonwood trees in the fall at Capitol Reef National Park
• My family singing while I played the piano at Christmas time
• Eunice growling at the vet
• Charlie purring while he kneads
• Maggie laughing when Jake tells a joke
• Jake singing “You Should Be Dancing” on the patio of our old house
• Dave’s smoky voice on the phone
• A rattlesnake the first time I encountered one and thought it was a sprinkler turning on
• Hummingbirds
• Quail
• Wind chimes in Kayenta
• Wind through the old windows in Torrey
• Mom’s voice on the phone

I struggled with this prompt but recognize the value of retrieving specific memories of sounds.

PROMPT #5

Review your output from last week and pick the story that has the most “heat” for you. Can you distill that entire story down to its essence and write it as a 6-word story? Then, expand it to 100 words: what are the most important elements and ideas to incorporate? Finally, try to do a sprint to 500 words (or more if you’re feeling ambitious). 

Spend no more than 30 minutes total on this exercise and stop for the day.

Letter to Marcia Whipps:

6 words
My English teacher drank to survive.

100 words
To my high school English teacher, I’m not convinced you drank during the school day. Though who could blame you if you did. I imagine you saying, “I need something to help me get through the day. I’ll just add a little bit of brandy to my coffee, to soften the edges, to help me control my anger.” I’ve never wanted to drink at work. Maybe I wanted to a little bit during the early months of the pandemic. I also never wanted to teach high school English. I knew I couldn’t handle it. I would probably start drinking too.

500 words
–> see my PROMPT #2, which obviously needs revision

PROMPT #6

Choose one of your story seeds (maybe the same one as yesterday) and add another story to it. You might weave in a completely new story, or you could try combining two of last week’s prompts. Or: 

1. Building on any response from week one, add another event/story that happened in the same place but at a different time—or the same time but a different place. 
2. If you chose a “First time” story from Prompt #1, explore the inverse and incorporate a related “Last time” story. Or vice versa.
3. If you chose a letter story from Prompt #2, add another character’s story to the letter. Or stop in the middle of the letter and tell a different story. 
4. If you wrote about the weirdest thing you’ve ever found from Prompt #3, follow the story of the thing to a different time or place. Where is it now? Or, can you weave in a research-based story about the thing (or type of thing) you found? 
5. If you wrote about a sound, from Prompt #4, weave in another instance of the sound. When did you hear it again? What was the same? What had changed? Or, try to tell the story of another sound.

Get down as much of the story as you can in 20 minutes. Stop for the day.

The first time I tried alcohol was unintentional. We lived in the Stables at Cold Spring Harbor. We didn’t actually live in stables. We lived in an apartment that was in a building that used to function as stables. Stables for what and for whom I never knew. We lived on one side of the building; the Pollacks lived on the other. Both apartments had an upper and lower floor. The downstairs level had high ceilings and seemed perpetually cold. It included a laundry room and a massive space that functioned as living room and dining room. My parents used it for entertaining and formal family celebrations, such as Christmas. We had a stereo downstairs as well. My siblings and I used the space to play. I liked to pile up my brothers’ cardboard blocks and go-go dance. It was here, after one of my parents’ cocktail parties, that I sampled a glass of melted ice. The glass contained the remnants of scotch whiskey, though I didn’t know that’s what it was at the time. I only knew it tasted awful. My father discovered me sampling the dregs and laughed. Later, I told this story over and over again to the amusement of his colleagues and my family.

PROMPT #1

Start a (true) story with the words the first time or the last time. The fourth word of your story can be anything except a first-person pronoun (I/we/my/our). 

Get down as much of the story as you can in 20 minutes. Stop for the day.

The last time Charlie broke a bone, he was climbing over the fence in our backyard. At least that’s what we think he happened. One summer day, he showed up on the rug inside the back door and looked injured. He couldn’t stand without holding up his back leg and seemed to be in pain. How do you tell a cat is in pain? They wince when you touch their leg. They cannot move very far without great difficulty. Beyond that, they don’t tell you. They don’t even yowl. We took him to the vet, where he received x-rays confirming the break and a cast that extended from his upper thigh to his ankle. He wore this cast for about a week. Then he wore a shorter cast for about a week. Then an even shorter cast for about a week. (I could be wrong about the amount of time he spent in each cast, but I do have photos of his various casts, in various colors and patterns.) The most difficult part, for us, was keeping him inside and feeding him. He customarily ate on the bar counter, so the dogs couldn’t reach his food. We had to close him in the laundry room when he ate. Neither he nor we liked this arrangement because we had to schedule feeding times rather than leaving his kibble out for him to eat when he needed or wanted to eat. But eventually he recovered and gradually regained almost full use of his leg. He still has a scar and the injured leg remained smaller than the uninjured one. At times, the leg seems to bother him: jumping on and off of furniture, walking up and down the stairs. He also avoids lying on the bad leg. The older he’s become, the more he appears to experience pain. We now give him biweekly shots of medication intended to alleviate arthritis pain. After he’s received a shot, he seems happier. How can you tell if he’s happy? He doesn’t yowl as much in the early morning. He’s more playful. He moves around more easily. When the shot wears off–usually the 12th or 13th day after the previous one–he becomes noisy, plays less, and moves stiffly. We’re happy that the shot helps, though it’s no fun to administer. Dave gives it to him, since he’s used to injecting cats (his cat Lucy needed twice daily shots for various maladies). We try to find a time when he’s relaxed–lying on the couch or in a chair–and when we don’t have to rush anywhere. In other words, we wait until everyone is calm, relaxed, stress-free. Dave approaches Charlie, reassures him through pets and speech, then pulls up the skin from the scruff of his neck, finds a spot with plenty of room, and administers the shot. Once done, Dave massages the spot and reassures Charlie again. The injection usually goes smoothly, only causing Charlie to meow a couple of times. We think he’s startled more than in pain. How do you know when a cat is startled? They will meow loudly. They will claw at you. They will run away. Only occasionally has Charlie meowed. He’s never clawed at Dave while being injected. And he’s never run away.

PROMPT #2

Write a letter to someone—other than your parents—who will (probably) never read it. You might be writing this letter to share some feelings, but you should also focus on the event or interaction that caused the feelings. What did this person do or say to inspire this letter? What do you want them to remember or understand?

Get down as much of the story as you can in 20 minutes. Stop for the day.

Dear Marcia Whipps,

I don’t know if you’ll remember me, but I was in your junior AP English class at East High. It was my first year in Utah–new school, new students, new everything. You provided a structure that I probably needed at the time. You graded us on each period, comma, semi-colon, etc. Whether used or not used. Correctly or incorrectly placed. How did you have time to read all of our papers? Let alone mark them up so carefully? Some of my classmates claimed that you added booze to your thermos of coffee and thus “powered” your way through the day. I never saw you nod off though. Not like Mr Weeks–Calvin Weeks–who taught AP Chemistry, sat at his lab bench, and frequently dozed off in the middle of a lecture. We sat in our seats, reading or doing some other individual activity, until he woke up. He used to say he worked nights at the Wonder Bread factory and thus was tired during the day. But you did not sleep. You kept watch over us during class then graded our papers at night. I remember you came to one of our high school reunions–maybe the 10th? The student body selected you as the most beloved teacher. You walked with a cane. We greeted you, happy to see you. I never knew if you were married, had children, grandchildren, pets. I knew nothing about you. I remember you wore lipstick, smoked cigarettes–I could tell by the smoky fingers, bloodshot eyes, and ashy papers you returned to us–and drank coffee. And probably liquor. I’m not convinced you drank during the school day. Though who could blame you if you did. By the time I took your class I had tasted alcohol many times. I’d gotten drunk on screwdrivers with friends on Long Island. I’d gotten stoned and walked on the beach with those same friends. Sometime during junior high. But I hadn’t gotten drunk in Utah yet. That would happen during my senior year, after I’d made friends. I’ve never wanted to drink during work. Maybe I wanted to a little bit during the early months of the pandemic. I didn’t do it though. Too scared. If you did drink during the school day, were you ever worried that you would get caught? Had you thought through the consequences? If you were an alcoholic, you probably thought you could get away with it. Substance first; consequences last. You would have rationalized the behavior…”I need something to help me get through the day. These teenagers are awful. Stinky, noisy, ungovernable. I only have a little bit with my coffee. When I get home I can have a real drink. Besides, it’s just a little day drink to make the time go by, to soften the edges, to help me control my anger.” You did seem angry sometimes. Because you were coming off the booze or not yet on the booze? Or maybe you just got angry, as any normal person would. I never wanted to teach high school English. You may have an influence on me there. I knew I couldn’t handle it. I knew I’d probably start drinking too. Now look at me! Professor of English with my own addictive tendencies. What do my students think of me? Do they wonder if I drink, smoke, abuse substances? Like I’ve assumed about you. Rumors. What rumors do they have about me? I’m sorry if I’ve perpetuated a lie. I’m sorry if I’ve misrepresented you. I’m sorry you had to endure so many years in the public school system.

Thank you for everything you taught me,

Becky Jo Gesteland

I wrote about resolutions last year. What I said then I maintain still: I don’t make resolutions, though I kind of do and then quickly abandon them. But this year, I’ve been contemplating a new kind of resolution: acceptance. Acceptance of me, my body, myself.

Since my early teens I’ve counted calories or carbohydrates and tracked my weight. I’ve winced at my appearance: too fat, too old, too gray, too saggy. I’ve judged myself for not being what I think I should be: in shape–whatever that means–and within a few pounds of 135–wherever that ideal weight came from, I don’t know…perhaps my grandmother, who was also 5′ 2″ and claimed to weight 135 her entire life. I don’t know the last time I weighed 135…perhaps after I had Jake when I somehow returned to my pre-pregnancy weight. After Maggie, I did not return to 135. Now I’m a 61-year old menopausal woman edging closer to my peak pregnancy weight of 165. Yesterday my scale said 160 with clothes on.

Google menopausal weight gain, and you’ll find lots of articles about the phenomenon and even more articles about how to fix it. Diet, exercise, and hormone therapy appear to be the cures. But what if I’m not a problem to be solved? What if I’m a normal woman going through typical changes associated with aging? Google aging actresses, and you’ll find images of women who have gained wait as they’ve aged. Look at photos of your mother when she was young–before she had children–and compare them to photos when she is old–after she became a grandmother. Of course she dieted and lost weight for a while, but she ultimately returned to what her body deemed a natural weight.

The anti-anxiety and antidepressant medications I take may contribute to weight gain. But I wouldn’t give them up for anything. I like being sane. I’ve accepted my need for medication, so why can’t I accept my body’s changes as I age? My goal for this year is to work on accepting my body as it is now. Obviously I don’t need to drink or eat as much as I may want: I can moderate my intake. Obviously I should move my body as much as possible even if I feel like being lazy: I can exercise regularly. That said, I don’t like struggling against my body as I have been doing. I will strive for acceptance.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. (Serenity Prayer)

a short piece I wrote about Jake and Gus…

Cousins

A quote from the last section of Grant Faulkner’s The Art of Brevity: Crafting the Very Short Story (168-169):

On Revision (and Knitting)

When knitting, you might get pretty far along with your sock before you realized you effed up and dropped a stitch. If you want your sock to look good, you are going to rip out the stitches and lose the hours you spent knitting perfectly well after you made that mistake in order to correct your error and ultimately make the sock you were born to knit. For me, writing is the same. If I take a wrong turn, I need to go back to that juncture to fix the story. Otherwise, I will have a sock, I mean, story, that has not lived up to its potential. A stupid, useless sock-story.

— Lynn Mundell

I’m struck by the parallel to a recent experience of my own: I found a skein of cotton yarn, whose label indicated it was suitable for size 1-3 mm needles, and I knitted a sock to the heel gusset three times. Each time, I dropped a stitch or lost count of the decreases then couldn’t retrieve the stitches when I undid my work. After I ripped out the sock for a third time, I decided I either needed to change the needle size or yarn weight. I found a skein of Noro sock wool–not as soft as cotton–but the weight fit the needles. The stitches were not too tight, not too loose. The gauge was just right.

Like Mundell, I couldn’t leave the mistake and carry on. Unlike Mundell, I couldn’t return to the juncture and fix it. The mistake was in the materials: the yarn, the needles, the gauge, the pattern. Something was amiss. Everything has to work together in order for the sock to live up to its potential. Rather than revising “a rip in the fabric” (yet again), I need to rip out the entire sock-story and start over. Rather than a 387-word micro essay, perhaps I need to write a 100-word story about the demise of a favorite flannel robe. Distill the sock-story to its essence.

Insightful piece in The New Yorker: The Tortured Bond of Alice Sebold and the Man Wrongfully Convicted of Her Rape. See my previous post: unlucky.