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When someone asked, "So, do you live in the country?" I didn't know how to respond. My mother in-law said, "You're surrounded by fields, and sheep, of course you live in the country."

Many have come before me, so where I live is not my property but the land.

We are, each, just visitors.

It's mostly grass, but every day there is something new.

It breathes.

It moves.

Moving and Unpacking

I have moved, but I have not unpacked the boxes.

After living in St. Paul for the better part of 20 years, my family and I loaded up the truck and moved to Central Minnesota. It's not the end of the world...that would be the next freeway exit.

We are out in the country, kind of, in a house that sits on five acres. That amount of acreage is expansive to me after having a backyard barely big enough to hold three consecutive cartwheels.

So we are here, and I thought I would miss my Grand Avenue: Thomas Liquor, Whole Foods, Coffee News, Dunn Bros...OK, I miss Dunn Bros. That is good coffee. I thought I would miss walking down to the River, jogging to Ford Parkway, driving to Ft. Snelling for a quick nine. But I don't.

I walk the land here almost everyday, and almost everyday I see something new. This past week, the birds have shown themselves for the first time this Spring. Among them are Sand Hill Cranes. They seem to be nesting in the area and come to the neighboring field to feed. I have never seen anything like them before. They are prehistoric in size, flight, and sound. Check 'em out on the Cornell Lab website: http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/Sandhill_Crane.html
Hauntingly beautiful, and better than cable.

It's good to be on the land, but I will say that the move has taken some getting used to. After spending the first few fitful nights worrying about the sound of the furnace, the sound of the water softener, and the likelihood of a reenactment of In Cold Blood, I am making peace with the place. It is still and that stillness suits me. It is getting in to me. To make room for the quiet, I am trying to discard the worry and paniced pace brought on by a 70 mile commute. I am relearning how to be where I am instead of where I might be next. Whether I'm painting, stripping wallpaper, or grading papers, I am trying to do just that. It's not always easy. I find that I work for a while and then I begin to push, as if forcing tasks forward from the inside out well help. I learned this behavior effectively by practicing it for the past ten years. It will take some time and concentration to unlearn it.

So I have moved, and I have begun to unload. The boxes? They can wait.

A Long December

“A Long December”

I like the song “A Long December” by Counting Crows a lot, but I think it’s hard to write about a song, a poem, or a piece of art that matters to me without sounding overly sentimental, without saying, “I love this song man… It speaks to me…No, I mean it really speaks to me… It’s like Adam Duritz knew exactly what I was thinking when he wrote it man.” (Thump chest and insert ‘rock on’ sign here.) The reality is, though, whether I listen to the song on a CD, iPod, or computer, or watch the video on YouTube, it does get inside me. Every time I hear the song I sing along, sure, but more than that, I am hit by the images and memories that it stirs.

The song is dark, no doubt, but I live in Minnesota, and I have experienced my share of long Decembers, so I know something of which Duritz speaks. December in Minnesota is where the sun comes to die, dark and cold, cold and dark, lower and slower. Depressing? It can be. Having plowed through winters and depression, however, I have little affinity for the gloominess in the song. Instead, I hear the hopeful lyric, the maybe, and I sing it over and over like a prayer:

I guess the winter makes you laugh a little slower,
Makes you talk a little lower about the things you could not show her
And it’s been a long December and there’s reason to believe
Maybe this year will be better than the last
I can’t remember all the times I tried to tell my myself
To hold on to these moments as they pass

Why wouldn’t I think that? Why wouldn’t I choose to believe that this year will be better, and next year will be better, and each year after that will be better than the last? I’m not saying that last year was bad. No. Last year was good, but this year, next year…better. This is me dreaming, hoping, and hanging on to a vision of what might be because as I live through my mid 40s I see how the day-to-day stuff can fog up the long view.

I realize that A Long December isn’t all fun and games. There is a longing in the song too, and I feel that. As I listen, I reflect on what I have not been able to do, and remember what has passed:

And it’s one more day up in the canyons
And it’s one more night in Hollywood
If you think that I could be forgiven... I wish you would
The smell of hospitals in winter
And the feeling that it’s all a lot of oysters, but no pearls
All at once you look across a crowded room
To see the way that light attaches to a girl
And it’s one more day up in the canyons
And it’s one more night in Hollywood
If you think you might come to California... I think you should

I hear these words and remember the two weeks I spent in Los Angeles: an afternoon with a friend from college, an evening party in the Hollywood Hills overlooking the city, hot tubs at three in the afternoon. I remember past lives, past transgressions, the desire to be forgiven and the realization that the most pure and powerful absolution directed at me begins with me. And those thoughts are hope –filled. Hospitals in winter? Oysters and no pearls? Yup. But then, just before I might begin to wallow, I look up To see the way that light attaches to a girl. For me, this is an image of radiance, amber and warm, which I experience as hope.

It’s February, 2008. I have survived another long December and January too. For me there is no maybe about it. This year will be, and already has been, better than the last.

(If it's been a long December since you've heard the song or seen the video, here's the YouTube link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNF1a-ZG1uc)

That was then; this is now.

Then and now. They sound so far away from each other don’t they? It’s as though then is way over there somewhere and now is here, sitting in my lap. I suppose there is a difference between then and now, but the more I think about one, the more I am reminded of the other.

Then. Then bookmarks the olden days. It is not simply yesterday, rather it is the bygone days. Then is what I did when I was a kid like those times I spent fishing from Uncle Herb’s dock with my brother and my neighbor, getting up at 6:00 a.m. and riding our bikes down the middle of car-less street with fishing poles, worms, and sandwiches in our hands. Then is what my own children did when they were kids like tromping through our pumpkin patch when we lived on the East Side, or trick-or-treating during the Halloween blizzard that dumped snow up to their chins, or using our picnic table as a stage for their backyard plays, audience optional. Then is what happened back then.

Now. Now is today. It is my work, work for a paycheck, work to keep a family intact, and work to keep a marriage growing. Now is my wife’s job, my children’s jobs, and each of our jobs to watch out for the other. For us to do that work and those jobs now we need cell phones in hand complete with email and text messaging; we need an i-Pod, a your-Pod, and a my-Pod at our fingertips, and we need laptops, desktops, and a pop-up internet so we can fetch the information that we want right now. Now is so incredibly current that it is almost tomorrow.

Then and now feel decades apart in time and tone. One is halcyon, the other harried, but here’s the twist: Now is next year’s then. What I am doing now will eventually become what I did back then. Whether I am casting a line or surfing the net right now, some time in the future I will remember it as happening back then. The lines will begin to blur and, gradually, I will not store these memories in separate categories but bunch them until they become part of my collective history. Then, all these moments will be saved side by side just as they are now.

Just Writing

It’s 8:12 on a Thursday morning as 13 college students gather to write, 11 on laptops and two with pen and paper. Whether the students use a computer or choose to bring the words with an old-school approach, they write. Anyone wandering by the classroom can see and hear their writing work, not that there is much wandering that occurs on a college campus at 8:12 a.m. My students are there, nonetheless, just writing.

Today, I sit in the back of the room and glance up every now and then to watch these writers at work. Some students stare intently at their laptops, faces awash in an eerie, blue-white hue as they place and erase words on and from the screens. Others, like me, write, look up, write, and repeat. Still others look out the window at the courtyard as if waiting for an idea or phrase to make its way into the room, into their heads, and onto the page. Predictably, a couple people are simply trying to wake up. Writing isn’t easy for anyone in this room, but we have established that it’s a lot easier with open eyes and uninterrupted respiration.

Most of us did not volunteer for this early-morning experience. We were encouraged, invited, requested, required to attend. Participation in the course is still voluntary…like paying taxes is a choice. I am here because the prof originally assigned to teach the course could not. My situation is perhaps a bit easier than the students because I actually agreed to the assignment and have enjoyed the work and the group. While I have not asked each person in the class why she or he is here, I believe that for most it is the first time they have felt the effects of an administrative decision. I suspect many of them were “strongly encouraged” to attend because their writing needed some work.

I do not know yet what that work is exactly, but I am beginning to figure it out. I should say that we are gradually figuring it out because just by writing and being around others who are writing we are wrestling with ideas and talking about how to communicate those ideas in concise and well-organized prose. We read our own words and the words of others and learn. Garrison Keillor has shown us how to include necessary details in long sentences, and Judy Blume has reminded us how important it is to write about something that matters, something we believe in. When we actually write and examine our writing, we are learning about our strengths and needs as writers. This knowledge encourages us to say, “That part makes sense,” or “What’s this piece about?” or “Changes should be made in the use of the passive voice,” and “What are you working on as a writer?”

As I teach this course, I read, respond, prepare, and work on my own writing: I know that everything I write for an audience needs an identifiable main point. I know that my pieces will be more interesting and clear when I include a turning point, a place where I use my understanding and insight to really drive home the big idea. I know that I need to learn a lot more about writing in order to teach writing effectively and efficiently. And I know that the best way to learn it is by just writing.