gifts II
William on his new drumset at Christmastime from Billy Hunt on Vimeo.
Billy thinks it’s hilarious that when the video pans from William, at his brand-spanking new Christmas eve drum set, it shows me: oblivious at my computer.
Photo and video by Billy
My gift for myself was finishing my manuscript. J from The Literary Group International emailed me a few days before winter break with the good news. My much revised draft of ‘The One You Remember’ is ready to shop out to publishers. Fourteen middle school short stories: a teacher, a principal, and a girl with claw like bangs, and another girl with a heart shaped face. It seems like forever ago that I decided to try to make a collection of stories, hoping to string them together in some way. How can you know if something you make is any good, once you’ve poured over it for a million years? And does it even matter? I can only say I’m thankful to have worked so hard on something. To have put my heart into it.
Happy (almost) New Year!
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Filed under writing | Comments (4)gifts
picture by santa’s elf
Billy calls me Scrooge, but I like the lights and the sense of celebration as much as anyone. It’s the gifts that sometimes get to me: in their shiny green gifts bags, waiting to be opened for a wide-eyed audience of relations.
What I can’t help but notice, is what the gifts say about the ways in which we know (and don’t know) one another:
She’s artsy yes, but what does that mean exactly in terms of picking a planner for her?
He’s a big guy, undoubtedly, but L, XL, 2XL? How will this cut hang on his frame?
Every December I am struck by this gap between the dearness we hold for one another and the relative separateness of our day to day lives.
Did you get what you wanted for Christmas?
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Filed under writing | Comment (1)black
Photos by Billy
Walking in through the gate to William’s preschool courtyard, the tow-headed four-year-old from the upper classroom startled me with a question:
Why come, she said, all the brown mother’s at this school have white children?
Well as far as William, his father is white, that’s why his skin is the color it is—
By why, she interrupted. By then the girl’s mother’s face was drawn and pale. A few other parents, the assistants waiting to escort our children inside, all stopped to see what would happen.
Well, I said, stooping down to her level. It’s sort of like mixing paint. Brown + White you know it makes a color in between.
The girl’s mother smiled nervously, like: where do kids come up with questions like this? Everybody was waiting, a shared held breath, for this four-year old to sigh and smile and nod like she suddenly understood.
She turned to go and I stood up too, William tugging at my sleeve, oblivious to our conversation.
But then she turned back to me.
Your lips are black, she announced boldly.
She didn’t ask why.
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Filed under writing | Comment (1)three things so I can sleep
Photos by Billy
I love/hate my compulsive lists scribbled on the backs of envelopes and in various notebooks. Here are three questions that have kept me up a few nights at least:
(1) How did Tania Hershman get so savvy?
My fellow TinHouse workshop writer Tania has written a lovely book, The White Road and Other Stories, got published, promoted it on the interweb, and managed to plant a few trees along the way (not to mention managing the excellence short story resource, The Short Review.) The White Road is currently on my nightstand and it is really evocative reading. If you want unexpected, memorable short stories, or need a gift for someone who is interested in fiction and science, this is your book.
(2) Why is Wistar Watts Murray so damn clever?
I think I first met local writer Wistar at her blog, One Star Watt, and every time I go back there, I find myself wondering, how did she get that funny, that wry, that prolific. Wistar has got her finger on the pulse.
(3) How did Ryan Call make something so lovely?
Another TinHouse writer: last summer I heard him read a story that involved a sock used lewdly, and thought, there’s something in this person’s fiction. More Please. This month, I got more, when Ryan sent out this lush virtual version of his chapbook illustrated by his sister. Wow.
Who are you admiring these days?
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Filed under writing | Comment (0)church
Photo by Billy
Last week I went to church with Billy; he asked me to go. William stayed downstairs in ‘Godly play’ and I listened upstairs to what Reverend B had to say.
I like that Billly’s church has open swinging doors, coffee peculating in the lobby, and you can come and go to its wellspring as you please during the service. The dancing is like some elementary school production: amateur, endearing. The participants are exceedingly diverse—black, white, old, young, mentally disabled, gay-lesbian-and-transgendered.
Reverend B, it turns out, has something to say about Mary. What might Mary teach us, he says, if we saw her as a teacher and not just some passive pregnant teen-aged girl? I imagine, Reverend B says, she is telling us that each of us are the magnifiers of God.
Later in the week, I go to yoga. My teacher has us pin our forefingers and thumbs together—a Mudra, she tells us—this particular one, a symbol for yoga.
It represents, she says, union. The union of you, the individual with the universal spirit. It represents, she says, that mystery.
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Filed under writing | Comment (0)sing a song
Sing a song! from Billy Hunt on Vimeo.
Video by Billy
Looking here, through the camera’s lens, I can see what people mean when they say my baby William is a BOY now: taller, sleeker, cheekier than before.
William playing in the band, with Billy, at Billy’s CLAW opening, photos by Papa Johnson
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