Writing – Page 12 – Anne McClane

Endymion

The 2018 Mardi Gras season just concluded yesterday. Today is Ash Wednesday, but I’ve written about that before. I marched in the Intergalactic Krewe of Chewbacchus on Saturday, February 3. It’s a sci-fi themed Mardi Gras parade, and it’s a good fit for me. As it was my fourth year participating, I’ve written about that experience before, too.

I realized I’ve never written about Endymion, though. The Krewe of Endymion is one of the self-proclaimed “Super-Krewes,”—gargantuan, extravagant parades that punctuate the days leading up to Mardi Gras. I don’t know the exact parameters of a Super Krewe, or who determines that designation. Growing up, Endymion was always the big parade that rolled the Saturday before Mardi Gras, and Bacchus on that Sunday.

Those two parades still own the Mardi Gras weekend. But in the decade and a half that’s passed since I returned to New Orleans, three other parades have become a pretty big deal. Orpheus, which rolls the night before Mardi Gras (Lundi Gras); Nyx, on Wednesday a week before Mardi Gras, and Muses the next night, Thursday. The Krewe of Muses was the inspiration for local writer Bill Loehfelm’s latest novel, The Devil’s Muse.

It’s one of those things about living in New Orleans, and being from New Orleans, that must seem pretty alien to those not from around these parts. This innate knowledge of all the different krewes, and the components that make up a New Orleans Mardi Gras parade. There is a fountain on the south shore of Lake Pontchartrain, the Mardi Gras fountain, that I used to love as a kid. Our dad would drive us out there some evenings; and when the fountain was turned on, and the lights were a-blazing, it was a pretty impressive sight.

The Mardi Gras fountain. Photo courtesy of Yelp

I took a walk out there this past summer, and perused all the placards that line the fountain. One for each krewe that has paraded during Mardi Gras, going back about a century. Many of those krewes are not around any more. I had a thought of making a blog post about each of those krewes—I’d have more than a year’s worth of material.

But, obviously, I didn’t give it much more than a thought. I knew I’d get bored with the subject matter pretty quickly.

So, anyway, Endymion. This parade runs a different route from all the other big parades in New Orleans. (Chewbacchus also runs a different route, but it’s not a “big” parade.) Whereas the big parades roll Uptown, and along historic St. Charles Avenue, Endymion rolls through Mid City. And for the decade and a half that I’ve been back in New Orleans, I’ve lived right at the start of the Endymion parade.

The parade’s floats line up alongside City Park. This past Saturday, I took a walk with sister-in-law Christie, and mother-in-law Aprill, and captured a few photos of the dormant creations, before they were loaded with riders.

Rain threatened all day, but we managed to stay dry for most of our walk. We only had to employ the umbrella in the last few minutes before we made it back home.

We’re about to conclude the year of the Rooster. Welcome, year of the Dog.

February 14, 2018 by Anne McClane

Symmetry

January 30, 2018. Returning home from Atlanta.

I did not post in this space last week. But it wasn’t because I was unprepared; I had something ready to go. It still sits as a draft in my WordPress workspace—where it will likely remain as long as I have this WordPress.com account.

It was titled “Symmetry (and other random thoughts).” And when my usual posting time rolled around—early Wednesday morning, Central Time—my heart was no longer in it. The words felt crass, and shallow, and not what I wanted to put out in the world at that time.

Something devastating had transpired in between the time when I wrote that post, and last Wednesday morning. I was with a very close friend in the wee hours of that Tuesday, just after she’d learned that her beloved thirteen-year-old son had died.

My friend and I were both away from home, in Atlanta, for work. We had dinner together Monday evening. She had told me how her son was being treated for depression. A very active and bright young man, he had just started to show signs of struggle. My friend and her husband had wasted no time in seeking help for him. No one involved in his treatment thought he was in imminent danger of harming himself.

I went to sleep in my hotel room that evening, thinking of her son, and how hard it is to just grow up. And how overwhelming it must be when the demons of depression interject themselves into the turmoil of adolescence.

When I awakened around 3am, and saw several missed calls from my friend, I knew something terrible had happened. By the time I padded down to her hotel room in pajamas and work shoes, she had already booked the first available flight back to her home in Wisconsin. I stayed with her for a while, went back to my room to shower and dress, and returned to her room around 5:30am to drive her to the airport.

By Tuesday night, I was back home in New Orleans. And feeling profoundly empty. Or useless. Or all of the above. My friend and I speak often, but only see each other a few times a year. I was glad I was able to provide what small support I could—getting her to the airport—but it feels insignificant compared to the depth of her, and her husband’s, pain.

Or the magnitude of their loss.

When Wednesday morning rolled around, if I had published what I originally wrote, it would have meant me ignoring how close I had been to this tragedy, so soon after it had happened. And I knew that wasn’t the right thing to do. Silence felt more appropriate.

Not to mention that my friend is one of a handful of people who regularly reads what I write. It would have been a disservice to her friendship, dishonoring of her grief, and, essentially, contrary to every reason why I choose to express myself via writing.

I’m floundering at this very moment. I still don’t know whether this is “right to write.” But I am compelled by something. Maybe something beyond reason.

And ultimately, obviously, I’ve chosen to put this out there. Also, to salvage two items from that original post. I’ve left out the “other random thoughts,” and focused on two things that hopefully, adequately convey both feeling and depth.

First, the inspiration for the title of this post (and also, the unpublished one). It’s a song called “Shore,” performed by the Danish String Quartet, from their album “Last Leaf.” I couldn’t find the song on YouTube, but I did find a promotional piece about the group and this album here.

I downloaded “Last Leaf” sometime in December, and I keep coming back to “Shore.” It’s roughly three minutes long, and I’m always struck by the mid-point of the song. It bridges the two halves in perfect symmetry. To my ear, at least. And it’s nestled thoughts of symmetry into the back of my brain for the past two months.

I can see no symmetry to the hole that has been left in my friends’ lives. I can’t even pretend to.

But I can still be moved, and centered, all at the same time, when I listen to this composition. As only music can do, for us imperfect and imbalanced humans.

And there might be some symmetry to the one other thing worth mentioning from that other post. A symmetry between the unpublished and published, perhaps.

I had cheekily mentioned Bruce Willis’s character from Armageddon, Harry Stamper. I had watched the tail end of the movie in my hotel room Sunday night. I had drawn a comparison, as I’ve done in this space before, between Harry Stamper’s record of always reaching his drilling target, and my consistency in posting for the past two and a half years.

For the last several days, I’ve thought about the actual words, the line of dialogue that inspired the comparison. Harry Stamper never missed a depth that he aimed for.

If I had published last week, I would have definitely missed my target depth. And that’s not the writer I’ve ever intended to be.

February 7, 2018 by Anne McClane

The Station in Winter

Mere minutes after I posted last week’s story about the International Space Station, I went outside to watch it pass overhead again. 48 hours had passed from the sighting I featured in that post. And what a difference 48 hours made.

Really, it took less time than that for the city of New Orleans to plunge into a deep freeze. Overnight, we had been visited by the winter storm that blew over most of the U.S. last week. It was definitely cold by New Orleans standards, though certainly not as cold as it was further north. But here’s the thing about New Orleans: the city is surrounded by water. Every road into the city passes over some body of water.

And when the temperature goes—and stays—below the point at which water freezes…well, let’s just say things don’t go well for the citizens of this normally fair (and mild climate) city. Last week’s freeze brought us some absolute tragedies: a baby died and his young mother remains hospitalized after their car slid off an icy road into a drainage canal. She was trying to get him to his babysitter so that she could go to work.

For most of us, the consequences weren’t so tragic. Inconvenient, to be sure, and potentially costly, but not tragic. All the Interstate highways into the city were closed—as I mentioned above, every road passes over water—and we learned the truth to those highway signs: “Bridge Ices Before Road.” So, New Orleans was effectively shut off from the outside world, at least via ground transport, for a few days.

And pipes froze all over the city. Ours was a typical story: a pipe underneath our house froze, and when things started to thaw out, same said pipe developed a leak. Unfortunate, but it certainly could have been worse. The pipe only affected the plumbing on the north side of the house—the kitchen sink, dishwasher and laundry (and hot water heater). The bathrooms are on the other side of the house.

With leaks busting out all over the city, it put a drain on our municipal water system. Water pressure dropped, and the city issued a “boil water alert” to ensure the water that managed to come out of the tap was safe to drink.

I worked from home on Wednesday, the first day of the freeze, to keep an eye on the frozen pipe. I drove into work on Thursday morning, only to discover that my employer’s parish (I work in Jefferson Parish / I live in Orleans Parish) had lost water pressure. They didn’t have functioning toilets (among other issues), and Jefferson Parish had issued their own “boil water alert.” So I completed the phone meeting I had driven in for, took my laptop, and worked from home the rest of Thursday. To discover our leaky pipe by the end of that day.

So what does any of this have to do with the Space Station? I wrote the following last week, regarding why I continue to heed the text alerts I receive from NASA, telling me when the International Space Station will be visible in my sky:

“…whatever’s going on in my world, whatever’s causing me anxiety or drama, those alerts are a reminder to look up.”

At that particular moment last week, I already knew we had frozen pipes. I had not yet awoken Husband Tim and informed him of this fact. I already knew the Interstate nearest my house— and the eponymous Overpass from my first novel, The Incident Under the Overpass,—was closed.

If you take a closer look at the picture above, you’ll see the ice on my neighbor’s car, and the ice on the sidewalk. The bright point above and to the left of the Space Station is Jupiter, I believe. But what you can’t see is the cold stillness of those five minutes I spent outside. Or the supreme quiet. I will not likely experience such quiet again this year, as the closed highways meant I couldn’t hear cars in the distance, like I usually do.

The consequences of the freeze were waiting for me that day. But for five minutes in the early morning, I bundled up, watched my space friends track against the sky, and enjoyed the silence. And thought, “I’m sure it’s a lot colder up there.”

January 24, 2018 by Anne McClane

Spot the Station

So, on Monday I saw the International Space Station for the first time this year. I qualify this year—2018—because I’ve been looking for (and usually finding) the ISS in the sky for a couple of years, now. And I’ve been meaning to write about it for a while, too, but something else always seems to bump it back in line.

I began this exercise two years ago, when a friend from work told me you could sign up for alerts, to let you know when the Space Station is visible in your corner of the sky. The alerts are super convenient, because they take all these factors into account:

It has to be dawn or dusk, because the ISS reflects the light of the rising or setting sun. It’s not visible in the middle of the day or night.
The ISS must be 40 degrees or more above the horizon.
It also travels at roughly 17,500 miles (28,000 km) per hour, circling the Earth every 90 minutes. So it’s visible in a pretty tight window, usually anywhere from two to six minutes.

NASA does a good job of tabulating all these things, and sending a text about twelve hours before your next viewing opportunity. Here’s the website where you can sign up, if you’re interested: https://spotthestation.nasa.gov/

For any given opportunity, the only things that keep me from spotting the Station are timing and weather. If it passes overhead while I’m still asleep, or when I’m in the car on my way somewhere, then I’ll miss it. And weather is about the only thing NASA doesn’t include in the alerts—you can’t see the ISS if there’s too much cloud cover.

It was supposed to be visible a bunch of times in late December, at the end of 2017, but I came up empty several days running because it was too cloudy. I took it as a good omen for 2018 that everything was perfect for Monday morning’s sighting—the sky was crystal clear, the air was cold but not too windy, and it wasn’t so terribly early as to be obnoxious. The city of New Orleans needed a good omen, as our beloved Saints just suffered a devastating loss the day before, taking us out of the playoffs.

And here’s the thing (or things), the reasons I keep going outside and looking at the sky to spot our friends in the Space Station. One, it’s a great perspective check: whatever’s going on in my world, whatever’s causing me anxiety or drama (like the collective misery of a city with dashed Super Bowl hopes), those alerts are a reminder to look up. Up in the sky, I know there are six people who are an orbit away from their homes and loved ones, who’ve given up their time and Earth’s gravity for science, for progress, for adventure—I’m sure their reasons are plentiful. It reminds me of the reasons I wake up early to pursue my writing.

Two, it’s an opportunity for a quick meditation. About whatever—perspective, gratitude, ambition. And faith. Faith that even if the sky is cloudy, and I can’t see them, the Space Station and its occupants are still up there. Faith that the next time the weather will be clear and I’ll get to track that little point of light as it zooms across the sky. And if not the next time, then maybe the time after that.

And finally, I’m not only a sci-fi geek, I’m a science geek. Astronomy, geography, geology. The very first thing I ever wanted to be was a cartographer (I’d say “map maker” when I was little). I imagine the occupants of the Space Station, looking down on me as I look up at them, a tiny speck way down in the boot of Louisiana. Each of us thinking how valuable, how fragile, and how momentous our endeavors are. As troubled as things may be, all over the map of the Earth, if we ever stop reaching for the stars, then hope is truly lost.

Per aspera ad astra.

January 17, 2018 by Anne McClane

Comic Con Through the Years

So, I was at the New Orleans Convention Center this past weekend for Wizard World New Orleans, more commonly known as New Orleans Comic Con. I’ve attended this event for several years running—it’s appeared in this space before.

I wrote about my attendance two years ago; and the very first picture I used on this blog was from Comic Con 2012. As I reflect back on this past half-decade plus, the common denominator, and the thing that makes Comic Con so memorable for me, are the family and friends who have accompanied me.

Back in 2012, it was niece Cece. I learned a lot about Doctor Who as we waited in line to get our entrance passes. Later that same year, myself, Cece, and one of her friends spent fifteen hours in a movie theater for the Avengers movie marathon. I think my legs (and neck) might still be stiff.

In 2016, niece Kate gave me a briefing on what was going on at school and with her friends as we waited to get our picture taken with Hayley Atwell. (Hayley Atwell was promoting her Peggy Carter character from the Agent Carter television series.)

For 2018, I was accompanied by niece Cherie, and got an education in not only Doctor Who, but also what used to be called the Star Wars expanded universe, and especially the character Revan.

I’ve also had the pleasure of attending with my good friend Sabrina, who instructed me on all things Outlander. And also best friend Kristen, who pops up in this space from time to time. For the past two years I’ve met her and her family there. Her son and daughter are just coming into their own fandoms, and it was especially fun to watch them take in the weird Comic Con wildness the first time around. They handled themselves like old pros this time.

It’s worth noting that Kristen introduced me to comics, specifically The X-Men, many, many years ago. And here’s the thing—we were roughly the same age as Cece, Kate, and Cherie the years they were my primary Comic Con companions (a little nod to Doctor Who there). We’re talking about that span between sixteen and eighteen years old: formative years indeed.

That’s the real treasure for me. Cece, Kate, and Cherie are all cousins; they each sprang from different siblings of mine. Spending that time together, apart from their siblings and parents, and finding out what’s rocking their individual worlds at such a flourishing age—it’s something that stays with me. Like the springtime plays in City Park’s Sculpture Garden, Comic Con has been something of a winter tradition between me and the nieces.

As I writer, discovering what these young women find compelling is invaluable. But as an aunt, and dearer to my heart, making these memories with such remarkable and beloved kindred is something I hold very close.

And one of these days, I’ll finally settle in and start watching Doctor Who.

January 10, 2018 by Anne McClane

Here, Winter Is

Wherefore no man grows wise without he have his share of winters—from The Wanderer, an Old English poem

As my first post of 2018, I was going to write something about how I resent New Year’s resolutions, yet feel compelled to make them anyway. And work in something about how I began this year as I began the last, with a walk in New Orleans’ City Park. But how the big difference was the weather.

So, I’ll start there. It’s cold! From the morning of January 1:

Okay, okay, I know this is downright balmy compared to some spots in the Midwest and along the east coast. But it’s all relative, right? The average January temperature in New Orleans is a low somewhere in the ’40s, and a high in the ’60s. (Fahrenheit, of course.) See, my app said it felt like 14 degrees! And apps don’t lie. (Do they?) And how about all those hard freeze warnings!

Anyway, I bundled up and took my walk. It wasn’t so bad, except when the wind started to blow. That’s when it must have felt like 14 degrees. I got some nice wintry pics of City Park, so it felt worthwhile.

On to resolutions. They’re awfully “should-y.” As in, “I should exercise more, I should eat more healthily.” It always makes me think of Yoda’s admonition to Luke in The Empire Strikes Back: “No! Try not. Do, or do not. There is no try.” It’s like the difference between intention and resolution. I had intended (not resolved) to swim some laps (in an indoor heated pool) before work yesterday morning. But it was really cold, and it was tough to get out of bed, and my throat was a little sore (maybe from that cold walk). So I did not swim laps. Thanks to Yoda, and the line of demarcation between intention and resolution, I don’t feel like a failure. If I had resolved to swim laps, and hadn’t, then I might be feeling like a failure.

It’s also why I’m hesitant to apply resolutions to my writing. In 2018, I’ll see the conclusion of my eighth year of this fiction-writing journey. Early on, I made writing resolutions—both New Year’s and Lenten—to write something every day, or to finish a short story. Things along those lines. But as I’ve come to view writing as a vocation, resolving to do these things feels like resolving to show up to work when I’m scheduled. It’s an unnecessary resolution. Showing up at my job is something I just have to do, or do not. And be ready to face the consequences if I do not.

So that’s where I find myself this winter, this extra-cold start to 2018. I’m deep into the re-writes for my second novel. I need to make the time to finish these re-writes, in short order. I intend for my time spent “doing” to far outweigh my time spent “do not-ing.”

I’ll go back to the beginning to conclude this post. That quote about wisdom growing through your share of winters is something I remember from high school. I must have encountered it in English Lit, and it’s something that has stayed with me ever since. I hadn’t remembered that it pre-dates the Norman conquest of England—thanks for that, Google. While I’m not that old, I’ve seen at least thirty winters since I first read that line. I can only hope that I’m wiser now for having seen those winters through.

January 3, 2018 by Anne McClane

2017 Look Back

The years teach much which the days never know. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

As I think back just twelve months ago, I remember a whole lot of uncertainty. We (the U.S.) had just completed one of the most surprising election cycles in recent history, and certainly in my history. My posts from a year ago reflect that state of uncertainty, to a degree. There was talk of Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men, some angst on my part over missing a #WritersResist event in New York.

I’m relieved to write that I feel a modest degree less uncertain now. The Republic still stands, the government still functions. (You can read into “functions” what you will, it’s a broad term.) On a personal level, I’m still employed, I still have some savings for the future, and I’m still writing.

This post completes the second full calendar year of this blog. On the “published writer” front, I signed a publishing contract with After Glows Publishing in the first quarter of 2017, and re-released The Incident Under the Overpass with them in September. I hope that the follow-up to TIUTO will release in the first half of 2018.

I had an essay published in OUTSIDE IN MAKES IT SO: 174 New Perspectives on 174 Star Trek TNG Stories by 174 Writers. I will have a short story appear in the sci-fi anthology Just a Minor Malfunction, issue #4, in late February 2018.

My progress in the published realm feels slow, but at least I can state that there is progress. And while I’m glad to be putting 2017 to bed, the year definitely had its highlights. I thought it would be nice to reflect on the new places I saw this past year:

Whitney Plantation: a sobering start to the new year, as I learned more about the role my ancestors played in the life of this once-successful sugar plantation. While not happy times for me, any occasion where my eyes are truly opened is worth remembering.
Düsseldorf: I saw a city in Germany I’d never seen before. Also of note, this is the only new place I encountered with my job—every other new place was of my own volition.
New Smyrna Beach: vacation with husband Tim on Florida’s Atlantic coast.
Murfreesboro, Tennessee: my first total solar eclipse!
Greece: a happier occasion to have my eyes opened, on vacation in one of the planet’s cradles of civilization.

So once again, Ralph Waldo Emerson states it best. The last days of 2016 certainly did not have places like Greece or things like a total solar eclipse in their sights. I’m grateful for the cumulative learning offered by this past year.

December 27, 2017 by Anne McClane

The Star

Our local star rises over City Park in New Orleans, December 3, 2017

I recently read about the 17th card of the Tarot deck, the Star. It’s a pretty hopeful one, coming after the Fool has emerged from his encounters with Death, the Devil, and a creepy Tower with people falling from it. I couldn’t help but draw the comparison between the Star being the 17th card in the Major Arcana, and this being 2017…

The book I was reading was Juliet Sharman-Burke’s The Complete Book of Tarot; I’ve had this book for decades, but have referenced it more and more these past few years as I focus on my writing. Regarding the Star, she writes: “The Star has always been an emblem of hope and promise; a light to steer by.” She goes on to reference the Magi following a star to Bethlehem. It seemed another interesting coincidence that I just happened to read about the Star on the first Sunday of Advent.

And I got to thinking, I realized I am personally feeling more hopeful in December 2017 than I was in December 2016, for several reasons. First, I feel a lot more confident about my fiction writing than I did a year ago. It seems I spent the better part of ’16 consumed with and worried about the publishing part of authorship. Truth be told, it felt like a distraction. I couldn’t see how I could keep all the plates spinning and finish the trilogy I had begun in anything resembling a timely manner.

Fast forward to now: book 2 is written, and I’m in the midst of editing and re-writes. Book 3 is outlined, and I’ve begun writing it. Working with After Glows Publishing has made a world of difference—they’re who I have to thank for the confidence boost.

Next, I start a new job next week as a Technical Writer. It’s with the same company I’ve been working for; but it’s outside of the marketing department. So, no more trade shows for me. Believe me, it’s a welcome change—I’ve been involved with trade shows or “experiential” promotions for roughly twenty years. I’m excited about taking on a new challenge, and having the chance to hone my word skills with a different type of writing.

Finally, I find the #metoo movement really hopeful. I try not to stray too much into political/societal musings in this space. My intent is keep it to things I have some authority over—mainly, my personal experiences and how they relate to my writing. Since I’m a woman who has worked in a corporate/business environment for many years, I definitely have authority over my own experiences in that sphere, and those experiences definitely influence my writing.

And I know this: it takes boatloads of courage to come forward and expose the bad behavior of someone who has power over you and your livelihood. Too often, I’ve seen that courage met with, at best, some temporary disciplinary action; at middling, indifference; and at worst, reprisals against the powerless. The fact that some perpetrators are now losing their jobs—their positions of power—feels like a sea change to me.

A quick aside: I’ve written here before about The Writer’s Almanac. I hear it has been canceled since Garrison Keillor was dismissed from Minnesota Public Radio. While I will miss hearing the content of that syndicated program, I was never particularly attached to Garrison Keillor’s hosting of it. I’m impressed that Minnesota Public Radio didn’t let his “brand name” outweigh the claims that were brought against him.

I’ll conclude with the December quote from my 2017 “First We Dream” calendar. It’s from Louisa May Alcott, and it seems fitting that it involves a star:

Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead.

December 6, 2017 by Anne McClane

The Texas Renaissance Festival

So, I was in Houston this past weekend, visiting my sister Julie. Hurricane Harvey had something to do with this trip. After it dumped its biblical portions of rain on the Houston area, Julie and I carved out this time—a grateful acknowledgment of the fact that she and her husband were spared any flooding.

It took a little while for our schedules to coalesce. I had the trip to Greece last month, and Sister Julie had a bunch of work travel that just wrapped up. She flew to three continents over a four-week period, I think. One of her trips was supposed to commence the week Harvey hit, but airport closures pushed it forward.

As the fates would have it, I found myself in Texas during the Texas Renaissance Festival, for its Highland Fling-themed weekend. A note about this fair: Wikipedia tells me it began in 1974, on the location of an old strip mining site. Julie has lived in Houston for the past twenty-five years, and has been an avid fan of the TRF since she discovered it, shortly after her arrival in the Lone Star State.

Through the years, there’s been an assortment of our family that’s joined her on her annual trek to the festival, held every autumn, fifty-five miles northwest of Houston. I’ve been with her once before, five or six years ago, when I purchased a little owl figure at one of the shops.

There is a specific reason behind my relatively new fascination with owls. Shortly after I began this writing journey, I dreamt I had an owl as a pet. More a familiar than a pet. In the dream, the bird was trying to tell me in an owl-lie type way that I needed to adjust my focus, and pay more attention to writing. As motivation, it sorta backfired—while I definitely give writing more focus these days, I also get easily distracted by images or depictions of owls whenever I encounter them.

Original Owlie, plus a new sibling from Greece

Anyway, Sister Julie was in a reflective mood at this year’s festival. It might have been the effect of finally alighting at home after her round-the-world travels. Or maybe because her children are all grown now. Her daughter, Niece Emilie, would almost always join her for the Highland Fling weekend. Em just started a graduate program at Yale, so a trip back home to Texas just for the Fling was too hard to swing. 🙂

Julie pondered aloud about why she’s always loved the TRF. Was it the time of year, the South Texas air finally turning cooler? Was it the clothes and costumes? Was it Tartanic, the group that bills themselves as “Insane Bagpipe/Drum/Dance/Comedy” performers? Personally, I’d put in a vote for the scotch eggs and pear cider.

I reminded her that she’s always been drawn to that historical period:

“Remember the term paper you wrote in high school, ‘Was Medieval Woman Really…”

“Mid-Evil?” she finished my sentence. “Yeah,” she said, “How do you remember that?”

“I guess that’s the kind of stuff I remember.” Growing up the youngest of seven kids, with a nascent ambition to write, I paid attention to my older siblings’ term papers, short stories, plays, impromptu comedy skits…

Really, it’s enough for me that the Texas Renaissance Festival is just something my sister loves. As well as a lot of other people, apparently—it was packed this past Saturday. And I love seeing all the costumes, which span far beyond the Renaissance period. (For more casual togs, I was not the only one in a Star Wars t-shirt. And Astros fans were also out in force.)

And finally, I like to think of the “reawakening” meaning of renaissance. Here is an old strip mine, reborn as a verdant, pastoral, place. And what a lovely venue, and event, for the people of Houston to return to each year.

Admiring Julie’s new hair clip while waiting for the swings

November 22, 2017 by Anne McClane

Poetry Insurance

I’ve been thinking a lot about balance, lately. About how I can devote the time necessary to writing, and still go to work, earn a living…essentially, how to “pursue my passion” without abandoning adulthood entirely.

Which brings me to Ted Kooser and Wallace Stevens. I’ll start with Ted Kooser: he’s a former VP at an insurance company called Lincoln Bankers Life. He was also the U.S. Poet Laureate from 2004 to 2006. He managed the job/passion balance for a long while—by the time he retired from the insurance industry, he had published seven books of poetry.

Wallace Stevens was another poet insurer, but from a different age. He was born in 1879, and died in 1955. And, apparently, he never retired. He worked as an insurance executive in Hartford, Connecticut for most of his life. He was also awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1955. That same year, Harvard offered him a faculty position, but according to Wikipedia, he declined it “since it would have required him to give up his vice-presidency of The Hartford.”

Speaking of working in a different era, regarding the insurance industry connection, Ted Kooser reportedly quipped: “Stevens had far more time to write at work than I ever did.”

Kooser would write in the morning before going to work (like me. Or like I’m supposed to be doing). Writing time of day aside, I certainly find more in Ted Kooser’s profile to identify with than Wallace Stevens’s. Stevens traveled to Key West quite a bit, where he’d tussle with the likes of Robert Frost and Ernest Hemingway. And when I say tussle, I mean it in the corporeal sense—he evidently had several arguments with Frost, and at least one physical altercation with Hemingway.

If I were to dust up with current literary giants while on vacation, I’m pretty sure it would be all over social media. I’m also 100% certain I’d lose my job.

So I’m back to identifying with Ted Kooser. His Wikipedia page is pretty light on famous fights. He’s now 78-years-old, and still working that balance. While he’s retired from insurance, he’s the editor of a national newspaper column, “American Life in Poetry.” His poetry seems really accessible, and he also seems like someone you wouldn’t mind knowing in person.

This poem from Ted Kooser struck several emotional chords with me, so I thought I’d share it. Maybe one day my early morning writing sessions will yield something half as poignant:

Father

Today you would be ninety-seven
if you had lived, and we would all be
miserable, you and your children,
driving from clinic to clinic,
an ancient fearful hypochondriac
and his fretful son and daughter,
asking directions, trying to read
the complicated, fading map of cures.
But with your dignity intact
you have been gone for twenty years,
and I am glad for all of us, although
I miss you every day—the heartbeat
under your necktie, the hand cupped
on the back of my neck, Old Spice
in the air, your voice delighted with stories.
On this day each year you loved to relate
that the moment of your birth
your mother glanced out the window
and saw lilacs in bloom. Well, today
lilacs are blooming in side yards
all over Iowa, still welcoming you.

from Delights & Shadows, Copper Canyon Press, Port Townsend, WA 2004

You can find out more about Ted Kooser here: www.tedkooser.net

November 15, 2017 by Anne McClane