Writing

3.23.02

After grad school, I want to get up every morning and write for two or three hours. What will I write about? I wonder if I will run out of things to write about. I could go out, in search of things to write about. What would I find?

Maybe I could get the newspaper in the early morning hours, and go visit the site of something mentioned in the story. A burned-down house, a nightclub for teens, a deserted road where a drunk driver killed a dog, and herself.

What if I visited these places and never told Joel about it? I could write about them, but he would never know until he read it, and even then he would wonder if I had made it up.

I see myself getting up super early and taking off in my dinky Tercel to see where the break-in happened, see the newly opened Wal-Mart in the pre-dawn light, drive slowly past the house of the farmer whose daughter won a scholarship.

I would want to see all of these things just before the sun comes up, when the world is self-absorbed, resolutely ignoring the signs that day is coming. That is when I want to see them.

The Wal-Mart parking lot is empty. A plastic grocery bag blusters across its fresh blacktop.

The unilluminated letters of its name look depressed as the lights of the parking lot flicker yellow, then turn out.

The scrawny young trees, unaccustomed to their new environment, hang their dry leaves dejectedly.

Personal musings:

Wilderness: Dreams of living in the wild persist and change.

All grown up: At 12 I looked like I was 20, at 24 I looked 15.

Altruism: Can you ever repay the kindness of a stranger?

Photos in a box: A package from my brother turned my memories of childhood upside down.

Short story long: How to lengthen a narrative in a few easy steps.

Writing: Going the distance to find things to write about.

Neighbors: An amazing account of urban generosity.

Snacking: The angst of a healthy diet.

Thoughts on spiritual matters:

Subway preachers: Transcendence on the Red Line.

Thoughts in the Kingdom: How do you keep your mind in heaven and your heart in the world?

After September 11: Response to an attack on a mosque in Bridgeview, Ill., on September 12.