Monday, March 26, 2007

Neighborhood Witches, Psychic Aunties and Spiritualist Grandmothers

I'm looking for true stories about people like Miss Chant, the subject of my biography in progress.

The title of the post pretty well sums up the category. If you grew up knowing an older person in your community who was considered to have special powers and be a little strange, I'd love to hear from you. Please leave a comment here or email me at ppayne51@cs.com.

Thanks.

Friday, March 23, 2007

Open Heart

Brother Franc had his heart operation early yesterday, didn't wake up last night. I drove halfway to the wrong town to teach this morning. Then at 10:30 at school I got word he'd opened his eyes, squeezed Mom's hand. I am so relieved.

Almost everybody comes through this operation. The survival rate is 98%. And yet it's so frightening. Maybe it's the fact of several large tubes coming out of holes in his chest and neck. How much worse this day would feel if the prognosis wasn't good, I can only imagine.

Elizabeth and John Edwards and their family are among the boldest of us today. Those folks have courage.

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

The "Hard Part" of Doing

This week, for me, is hectic, tightly scheduled, and emotionally intense.

I have classes and student conferences today and Friday--and tonight I go to my hometown so I can sit with Mom, especially, tomorrow during my brother Franc's heart bypass operation. Then assuming all goes well--which is what's supposed to happen and going to happen--I'll come back Thursday night, and teach on Friday.

Yesterday and the day before weren't so hard, since all I was doing was preparing for classes and making phone calls and wrapping Mom's present for her 85th birthday, which is today, etc. Those things are not hard, though I'd thought in advance they would be.

This morning I'm dealing with students, which isn't hard at all. Now I'm thinking it's class--yes, that's what will be hard.

I also know that when I get there, class won't be hard at all.

What I'm starting to realize is that, for the most part, assuming I'm not trying to solve some famous impenetrable math problem: None of the pieces of doing what needs to be done are hard.

If Franc's surgery doesn't go perfectly, that will be seriously hard. But that's not doing--not for me at least.

So I'm starting to think that, for the most part, doing isn't so hard. Asking myself hundreds of times a day: will I get everything done?--that's hard, but not necessary. If anything, it slows me down.

With a good plan, it ought to be possible to stop asking that useless question and dreading "the hard part."

Then the hard part would be to stop obsessing over things I can't do anything about.

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

The Stress of Waiting

In one 24 hour period last week, my mother had a bad fall and my brother Franc learned that he has to have surgery soon for 5 heart bypasses. I'm not happy about any of this.

I responded by immediately getting a cold.

What this means is my immune system is a bit cowed by the stress of these events. I don't like that either. At times like this, I want all my systems to step up to the plate and do better than usual.

There's something unheroic about getting a sore throat in the face of trouble.

Both Mom and Franc are going to be okay. That's the main thing. But there's not much that I, even at peak health, can do to make sure of that.

I prefer problems that can be solved by some thought and energetic effort. More and more as I get older I see people facing problems that can't be fixed that way. These require their own brand of courage, a kind I haven't really begun to work on. (Except for weathering the times of waiting to hear the fate of a book. I guess those sorta count.)

Thursday, March 08, 2007

The Board of Inspiration


Two days a week I sit in an office at Duke borrowed from Dr. Melissa Malouf, a novelist and an English and creative writing professor. This is my campus home base during my semester of scholar-in-residence.

Among the many novelties of this sojourn is working in someone else's office and staring at her bulletin board of author/artist/et al portraits.
This inspiring collection is mainly postcards sent to Professor Malouf from former students.
I felt immediately at home here, in part because I've spent years with identical Henry James and John Lennon photos propped before me on my own turf. (Don't know how I missed the shirtless Mark Twain.)
It's inspiring to see the ancestors arrayed next to one's writing desk. And we can claim whoever we want for our artistic lineage. I certainly had no idea someone else was claiming James and Lennon. I guess that makes Prof. Malouf and me cousins.
I've several times felt the real power of putting a visual image in front of me. I had on my desk for a while a watercolor of freesia and irises. Then one day I realized that I was seeing it double.
What had happened: I'd unknowingly brought into the office the two kinds of flowers that were in that picture and put them in a similar vase. I'd physically reproduced the picture without being aware of it. So maybe this month I'll find I'm looking past the bulletin board at the real Virginia Woolf or Oscar Wilde.
One way or another I expect to feel the power of this collection of worthies. Start your own Board of Inspiration and see how it works.

Monday, March 05, 2007

A Bring Home the Troops Rally


I know it's not the 1960s, but a huge percentage of this country claims to be against the escalation/continuation of the war in Iraq.

This photo shows a bring-home-the-troops rally in Chapel Hill a few days ago.

The turnout was kinda sparse. About 40 people, a number which I found dismaying. Especially for famously peace-loving Chapel Hill!

As for the war, if we're agin' it, we need to be actively doing something to stop it. At least making our voices be heard.

Friday, March 02, 2007

The High Cost of Self-Doubt

I've just had the privilege of reading excerpts of the daily journals/"free writings" of over a dozen writers.

I was staggered by two things, the talent showing itself in the quality of the writing and the amount of self-doubt.

The quantity of energy devoted to self-doubt is huge. It's wasted.

This is a subject I have an honorary doctorate in; I've near-endlessly second-guessed quite a number of the words and actions I've ever let out into the world.

Seeing how much fuel a lot of good writers are wasting with fear has hit me hard--the way going to a slaughterhouse can make a person a vegetarian.

I think I've (unknown to myself) classified a lot of that second-guessing as a virtue. For myself, I've peeled the Virtue label off. It's a natural impulse among humans, completely understandable. But doing that harsh internal cross-questioning is not where I want to spend a lot more of my time.