Fresh Art Tour Oct. 1-3, 2010

This weekend, starting on Friday, I will be happily working away in a barn.

Barbara McIlrath, a wonderful painter, has invited my sister Dodie, and friends Harriet LeVian, Holly Swift, all three painters, and my lucky self to sell our work in the main part of her barn on the Fresh Art Tour. This tour has been going on for many years and circles around Stockholm, Durand and Pepin, featuring numberous artists who make baskets and bowls, spoons and books.

I will demonstrating rug hooking and selling the natural-dyed scarves I make with my niece Juliet Morris, who will also be there, helping us all.

And then there's the barn. It is a work of art, with hand-hewn beams and enormous sliding doors. Just spending time in this space will feel like a gift.

The weather is supposed to be perfect, the leaves are starting to turn and might well be in full flush, and as an extrovert, I probably won't get tired of talking until well into Saturday. We're saving the wine until Sunday afternoon.

Come join us if you can!

Re-viewing the Loft

Friday night I gave a presentation with Pete Hautman (my guy), Deborah Keenan (poet/friend), and Mary Rockcastle (dean/novelist/buddy) at Hamline University for the publication of Views from the Loft. This is wonderful compilation of essays that was written over the last thirty-plus years for the newsletter of the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis, called, you might have guessed: A View from the Loft.

Besides reading other essays by some of my favorite writers, including Yehuda Amichai, Larry Sutin, Kate DiCamillo, and Jim Moore, I re-read my old essay: "Writing about the Mysteries of Life." I wrote this essay a good seventeen years ago and it was better than I thought it might be. It's a story that I've told many times and will probably continue to tell until I bite the big one—how I've come to write mysteries.

And so I thought I'd quote a bit of it in this blog:

" It flabbergasts me that some people disdain mysteries. But then, I'm also amazed when some writers think they've accomplished something by writing a complicated, erudite sentence that no one understands. Good writing is about telling stories, and confusion is not the same as mystery. Mystery is when everything is painfully clear: the sky is immensely blue, the land is covered with hills and valleys, and the person you most love in the world is dead at your feet. How could this have happened? Mysteries are not meant to be solved but explored—just as when someone dies, we are meant to feel it, not get over it."

The line I keep in my back pocket and pull out whenever there's a need for it is: Confusion is not the same as mystery.

Blessings to the Loft for creating a community of writers that is still thriving today.

School Starts

I taught my first class of the fall semester last night. When I left school at nine o'clock, it was dark outside. I walked across the Hamline campus feeling the new energy as students ran past me on their way to somewhere.

The longer I teach, the more I realize how important and fun it should be, the more I think about teaching. I've taught for many years and never gave it much thought. That doesn't mean that I didn't put a great deal of effort into my teaching. It's just that I never thought much about what it means to be a teacher. How I'm meant to gently poke my students. Make them go further than they think they can.

This morning, I taught a swimming class of 3- to 6-year olds. For the first time a tiny dark-haired three-year-old boy jumped into the deep end of the pool all by himself. He bobbed up in the water puffed up with pride for what he had done.

Last night we started out the class writing a scene in which our main characters realize they want something--desperately.

Curl your toes over the edge of the pool and jump. The water is deep and full of wonder.

Corn Dog at the Minnesota State Fair

The end of summer in Minnesota is marked by the state fair, which goes until Labor Day. The next day is the first day of school. I worked at the fair--first as a bus girl in a smorgasbord, then as a cashier, then as a manager of a waffle shop. I learned how to cram the most food on a tray--cover the whole plate with mashed potatoes, a good foundation for the sloppy food.

I still go to the fair every year—early in the morning and by myself. I am waiting at the door of the Fine Art pavillion when it opens. Anyone who lives in Minnesota can enter a piece in one of 8 categories, which include painting, ceramics, glass, etc. and also fiber arts. My rug featuring animals from Lake Pepin made it in this year. While it's not that small (over four feet long), it's definitely crooked.

I figured out early on that I don't like straight lines. One of the wonderful things about hooking is that it's not weaving and it's made for curves. Even my geometric rug, which took second place in its category in the Creative Activities, is not straight. The Navajos are said to have purposefully put mistakes in their rugs as only god can make something perfect, but I go a few steps further. I want my humanness to show through, to be what the rug is about. I love how the hand naturally draws things with a sway.

For me crookedness isn't a mistake, it's a gift. It is a way into a piece, an admission of the rolling of the world. Why take the gentleness of a curve out of your work--be it rugs, or drawings, or stories? Emily Dickinson wrote her rhymes "slant." She left the door wide open.

As I was leaving the fair, I ate my yearly corn dog. Just an excuse to enjoy mustard and ketchup.

Full Moon over Lake Superior

Pete and I have taken our annual vacation with our two darling pups. We've gone up to the north shore of Lake Superior, almost to Canada. We're staying in a small rental cabin with a tiny stove, a funky bathtub, and a deck that faces west. We've managed to strew our stuff—books, maps, computers, more books, mushrooms, rocks that look like hearts, papers, and even more books—around the small cabin so that it more closely resembles our home.

This cabin definitely qualifies as being "small and crooked." Just what we love.

This time away from our lives, or as much of our lives as we couldn't fit in the car, also signifies the end of summer. When we get back, I'll have many manuscripts to read and a class to put the final touches on, and two of my own books to send out into the world.

Both Pete and I brought work with us. Being a writer, I often go on vacation so I have the time to write. One technique I've been using on this trip (and I often do it at home too) is to stay in bed after I've woken up and think about the book I'm writing. Muse might be the better word. What if this happened? How does a teenager feel after their first really good kiss? How do they describe it? When should this scene take place in the book?

I feel the whole book within me, simmering in the soup of almost sleep, and I stir it. When I get up, I write some of what I've seen. It's a gentle, easy way to work. I recommend it.

Last night we decided to drive a bit closer to Canada, so we got in the car and went north about twenty miles. On our way up we saw a moose. It was a first for both Peter and I. I pulled off the road and Pete got out the binoculars that he keeps in the glove compartment (I don't think he was a boy scout) and we watched it watching us. A young bull moose with a big hump and new felty antlers. After about five minutes it said enough and ambled back into the forest.

On the way home the moon came up over the lake a Maxwell Parrish moment. That rose-purple is unmistakeable.

Hope the end of summer is sweet for you.

An Amazing Reading at Dog Days

This last weekend, the middle of August, "dog days" indeed, we had a celebration in Stockholm, WI, of dogs and books.

On Friday night, charming emcee Pete Hautman kicked off the community read: poems or stories, often featuring a dog. We had eight-year-old Cole Johnson reading about his love of books; and our unofficial poet laureate, Bill Charlesworth, reading about driving to Sturgis to hang with the bikers (Bill is about ten times Cole's age and a more gentle, intelligent and dignified man would be hard to find). The readers, too numerous to list here, were terrific and the work was as varied the breeds of dogs.

The next day a slew of dog-related activities went on in the park, including a doggie parade complete with several competitions. Including in this blog, is a photo snapped by Maryanne Coronna moments after Jacques, a seven-pound toy poodle, received his trophy for third place for best costume, held by his proud owner—me. His flowers had grown limp so I had already discarded them, but he had pranced across the stage as "Flower Boy."

The very outrageously grand finale was Saturday night when David Rhodes read from Driftless and I worried that we didn't have the ambulance still on hand as several members of the audience were laughing so hard I feared for their lives. (John and Bill, you know who I'm talking about.)

Then three members of the St. Paul and Minneapolis Poetry Slam teams—Cynthia French, Kyle "Guante" Myhre, and Khary J.—enthralled the audience with their performances. When it was over, no one wanted to leave. It was very clear why these poets were members of the winning teams--the St. Paul team took first in the national poetry slam held a week ago. There is talk of putting together a slam team from Stockholm, talk to John Graber if you're interested.

Personally, I think this reading might have been the best one I've ever been to in my life.

Once Mary Anne Svoboda, Harley Cochran, Ericka Svoboda, Mary Michael, et al. recover (which may take months) we might consider doing it again. Bravo to all!

Hiding Out

I hate to admit it, but I'm in an air-conditioned cafe in Red Wing, Minnesota, absorbing some cool, hiding out. I'm almost sick of summer, or at least the form of grass-rotting, shirt-sweated-through, all-surfaces-damp summer that we've had this week. The good news is I'm getting some work done.

Each morning, before the deep heat sets in, I've been camped out at the table, reworking a book, adding some scenes. I sink into this fictional world, the way I embrace air-conditioning when it's just too blamed hot. I finish before noon and feel holy for the day.

Last night my sister Dodie and I went to see the Rush River, which had leapt its banks. Impressive and scary, farmers had cows swept out of their fields, bridges crumbled, a beautiful small pristine trout stream turned into a roiling, brown, dangerous torrent. Two days earlier we had gone swimming in this river.

We are so not in control in this world. Enjoy the danger and hide out once in a while.