esmith1's blog

“The places where water comes together with other water. Those places stand out in my mind like holy places.�

-Raymond Carver

Out of the northern end of Lake Itasca, a word derived from two latin words meaning, „true head“, bolstered by indigenous river rock, bubbles the artificially manufactured, 6 foot wide shallow beginnings of what, thousands of miles later, in New Orleans becomes a 200 foot deep, mile wide river flowing at 44,853,116 gallons every second. In 1933 the Parks Service re-dug new trenches, and planted new trees to accommodate the growing number of tourists who’d come to visit the beginnings of a river Mark Twain called “in all ways remarkable� and made famous in books like Huck Finn. They wanted to make the tourist’s experience more enriching so they turned what was almost an indistinguishable spot into a popular destination. This is a place where photos of me in homemade jumpsuits, Mardi Gras beads and giant purple glasses holding the hand of my then diapered baby brother were taken, the waters of the great river hardly rising above his one-year-old little ankles.

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Three hours in a 1993 Ford Probe, white with a rusty a bumper and two months expired tabs, knees folded neatly between the seat and the steering wheel. The blood, which steadily circulates her legs, has slowed its current. Her limbs weigh heavy, they have begun to tingle and cramp. She is only to LA.

Lexi Radcliff is a second born. Her pursuits to be superior in her ambitions are superfluous. She is doomed to be mediocre, and secretly she knows it. She continues to kid herself into thinking it is only a matter of time before she stumbles upon success. Lexi is opinionated. She is critical; an elitist and a hypocrite. She is a vegan who eats frozen yogurt in private. She is a self-proclaimed socialist who climbs over other people on the way up the latter. She eats organic and only smokes natural tobacco.

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What began as something which could hardly be called petty thievery ran its short-cut path to manic at record speed. At first it was almost sweet. I used to pluck the neighbors rhododendrons of their blossoms on the walk home from school; I liked the sound of the snapping stem. Collecting them for my mother in bundles I would place them in vases randomly throughout the house for her to find when she arrived home from work. On the tops of dressers, planks of the back deck, the ledges of bath tubs, window sills, night stands, toilets–nowhere was off-limits for my stolen bouquets. I’m not quite sure she was as delighted as I remember her being. Better than dandy lions, I’d say to my skeptical sister Fhara, who was quick to pin the dishonesty involved in my gift giving. She was right when she pointed out that people don’t ask questions when children pick weeds from their grass. There was definitely talk in the neighborhood over the missing rhododendron blossoms that spring. My mother would stay quiet.

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Soren sucked his pen like a cigarette, rolled it between his index finger and his middle, tapped it neurotically on the desk, as if to ash a kindled cherry. There was something entirely non-biological about his addiction, an objective phenomenon which transcended the mental state.

His father insisted, against the will of his mother, he be named Soren, after the existentialist philosopher, Kierkegaard—soon proven a fortuitous concession when his father died several days later; the one and only casualty of the 1949 earthquake in Seattle. Soren was thus burdened with the relentless affliction not only of the absence of a father, but also that of an embarrassing name.

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We made lists back in those days. The top five favorite bands we wanted to see live before we died, things like that. Lists that allowed us to postulate our hipness with trendy answers. A top five band list might, as I soon learned, consist of a few modish Indie bands as well as a token 1960's or 70's classic Rock and Roll band that we would never be able to see because one or more of the members had died of a drug over-dose or suicide. Megan had an "obsession" with Jimmy Page and put Led Zeppelin on her list, I think I may have said the Beatles. Only later did I discover that calling the Beatles one of your favorite bands is kind of like me calling Titanic my favorite movie in eight-grade and thinking that was cool; while it’s true, it is so much the cool thing to say it should probably be avoided all-together.

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Swirl the yogurt, make it twist. Twist, or side by side, I ask my customers.

Customers have preferences. Preferences abound. Abound in changing flavor abound in calorie count abound in stolen punches on your "get one free card." Card

the under-agers, children shouldn't be eating this many chemicals. Chemicals,

try counting chemicals instead of calories. Calories, "only ten per ounce, oh my!" My conscience tells me, “taste the fatty sugary flavor, Custard Vanilla�

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Klondike could be compared to a small cutlet of meat. On the plate he looked juicy, even tender; he was, by every standard of butchery mouth-watering. But once inside the mouth he was tough, almost impossible to chew, his fibers getting strung like floss between the teeth, and when swallowed he'd get lodged in the back of the throat until he could be choked down, at which point he would settle, odious in the pit of the stomach, completely indigestible to remind his eater of his jaded allure and of their own glutinous folly.

Posy was the doomed partaker of this beguiling little cutlet, and now that she had finally swallowed, she was ready to forget about him. But small cutlets of meat of such stalwart texture as Klondike are not so easily forgotten, as Posy is now well aware. They cause all sorts of problems, like ulcers and indigestion. And their own glorious formation into fecal matter is either long delayed or entirely obsolete.

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I’ll be the first to admit that abbreviating is, at times convenient, and even appropriate. For instance when referring to the great country we live in, USA rolls of the tongue with much more grace than its actual ten syllable namesake. A good friend of mine however, who shall remain anonymous by name, but by quotable reference is entirely identifiable, has taken abbreviations to a new echelon. She not only abbreviates ten syllable words, but has also begun abbreviating, in both speech and in writing, mere one syllable words, and even abbreviating abbreviations themselves, thus creating her own Olethean Ebonics, understood only, and not even in its entirety by her close friends. For instance, in this specious language the letter D is no longer simply a consonant in the English alphabet, but the key to understanding an entire dialect of abbreviation. Her motives are more in the name of comedy than actual convenience or laziness, but the product of these arguably absurd abbreviations are indistinguishable. In their quest to simplify they complicate. Now, when this friend of mine says things like, "What’s the D?", or "I’ve got to take a D?" Or, "I think that guy is D?" Or maybe the more popular "You’re just a big D baby!" she is actually speaking in calculated sentences. In case you are not versed in this foreign tongue, a rich cornucopia of diverse words were implied in these simple phrases, all of which were never even spoken or written. Deal, dump, drunk and dumb were all referenced. (This could quickly lead into a long and philosophical conversation of the brain and language and human capacities but I will refrain and move the topic in another direction.) The goal here is to simplify, it is convenience, perhaps ridiculous but the tongue indeed does less work, however more is required (unnecessarily) in the process of interpretation, . D, although not entirely arbitrary becomes vague and confusing, and compromises effective communication. It could be interpreted and misinterpreted endlessly.

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After nearly a month into their final year at PLNU, Aubrey and Emily had yet to recognize the existence of a single person outside of their own. They ignored anyone that attempted any sort of interaction or conversation with them while on campus, acknowledging only one another in brief bursts of sick poses and the occasional funny joke. They had spent the summer waxing their skies, and were now flying down the steep and slippery slope towards utter solipsism. The only things slowing them down: The Amalgamates and of course each other. Like moguls in a downhill contest, The Amalgamates did their best to arrest their quick decent.

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I have just recently developed a fear of the Christian Bookstore, but agreed, (despite my better judgement) as a favor to a friend to pay a visit, a homeage really, to an old retreat I found solace in ithroughout my tortured middle school years; a place I have only recently grown to resent. My friend was out to find a smaller and more compact bible he could carry in his pocket. A noble purchase, if there is such a thing, but I was none-the less wary of the odyssey, equating past visits with those daunting words that echo in the back of my head, "consume, consume, consume!" upon almost any kind of shopping trip I brave.

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We barbequed Goldie for dinner on Friday on my dad's new Weber. You, know, my four year old golden retriever we played Frisbee with last summer. Her haunches were quite good, but I thought the forelegs were a little tough.

No, we didn’t really eat my dog for dinner, but so what if we did?

Whether or not you eat meat is not the issue here. The issue is whether you would eat it, if eating it meant more than going to the store and buying it, or ordering it at the drive through. Would you eat it if that meant raising an animal, and when it was big enough killing it, skinning it, gutting it, cutting it up, and roasting it in the oven, then devouring it? If you are anything like me, you might have a problem with, first of all killing and then proceeding to eat something that you had cared for, had seen grown, something you saw live. It’s like killing your dog. This strikes me as somehow inhumane when put in this context. But I am like everyone else in that when someone else kills it and packages it and I see it wrapped up neatly in the grocery store I hardly have second thoughts.

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Jonathon Franzen concludes his 2002 New Yorker essay Mr. Difficult: William Gaddis and the problem of hard-to-read books with a cogent claim. “A story like this, where the difficulty is the difficulty of life itself, is what a novel is for.� (Mr. Difficult, 10) This statement, in regards to Gaddis’s novel, The Recognitions, a book which characterizes, for Franzen at least the essence of difficult fiction in fact provides a marked synopsis of Franzen’s own writing. His writing is difficult because he writes about difficult things. This, in a sense singularizes the redemptive quality of most of his non-fiction. His essays are fundamentally difficult in that they are autopsies of a very difficult culture which attempt to not necessarily criticize or to complicate but to find meaning beneath.

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"Inwardness, the more reflective component of self requires a space where a person can reflect on the meaning of things."
-Shirley Brice Heath

The waning plush of the crimson upholstery in my Dad’s 1985 Ford Tempo is vivid as I recall the inquisitive nature of my child-mind. “Why Dad?� I’d ask. Bumping along the unpaved street to the Berg’s house I’d stare at the back of his head, the curly nape of his neck framed by the bars holding up the headrest, as he answered, “Because I said so.�

Perhaps it's our culture or our families, maybe it’s our religions, I suspect it’s likely a combination of all of these, but I am still struck by the general attitudes we have towards curiosity. The menial and placating responses we offer children to their often serious questions are troubling. I remember once asking my Dad, "How could God create an entire world in a week?"

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The shade of blue of my face alarmed Sarah Perry like a screeching whistle to the crescendo-ing panic beating forte inside my head.

The percussion of my hacking and grunting to each rhythmic beat of the Heimlich she then administered sent the slice of cucumber singing from my mouth like a song. The scene resembled a strange dance between partners with the music built in to the movements.

My day was a pedaled, dissonant chord, with too many notes and none of them in harmony. By the time I got the chance to eat, my stomach had been roaring to each chant of my dissident watch. The bites trumpeted the satisfaction of my wailing tummy.

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To ask the question, "can writing be taught," inevitably turns our heads in the direction of an even foggier one, a question requiring a plunge into an ocean we only want to dip our toes into. The question being, what is writing?

It brings me back to the first day of class when the question of "what is art?" was posed. A collection of words, that when ordered in such a way sends a load of bricks straight down my throat to rest, odious in the pit of my stomach. It is a question I fruitlessly spent the last year of my life trying to answer, knowing very well my efforts to define it objectively were entirely superfluous. The question of "what is art? is I believe, answerable, a problem is posed however when we begin to understand that the answer is not one, but many, and whatever answer we can arrive at will never be it. There is no it. And for a linear thinker like myself, this postmodern crap kills me. Much like the question of writing it is imperative we ask this question however and attempt to answer it as well, but it is duly important that we hold no one to our answers but ourselves. And our answers must always be ready to change and to move as we grow.

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