In which I am hugged by the third richest woman in the world

I got a hug from Alice Walton this weekend.  Here's how that happened:

I write for Crystal Bridges. The museum's founder, Alice Walton, was receiving an honorary doctorate from the University of Arkansas, located in Fayetteville, just half an hour down the road from Our Fair City. Alice, who is not crazy about public speaking, needed a well-crafted commencement address.  Crystal Bridges has a writer.  See the circularity there, and how it all comes back to me?

So I wrote one.  Then it went the rounds of all the various sizes of dogs here at the museum, who did all kinds of things to my nice speech, some of them not that nice.  Then it went to Alice, who liked it, but wanted a couple of changes and wanted it to run at five minutes or under.  Back to me.

(Photo by the Univ. of Ark.)

This was my chance to cut out the stuff the big dogs had muddied up, and brush up my own stuff, which I did.  Back to Alice.  Brilliant!  She loved it!  I'm a genius!  Saturday morning she gave the address, and I happened to be walking out of the Museum as she was walking into the Museum at about noon immediately following.  She saw me and hugged me and said several people had come to her and told her it was the best commencement address they'd ever heard.  I have a witness who was there and can attest to the fact that Alice Walton hugged me.

Personally, I think the speech's popularity has a lot more to do with the fact that we cut it to under five minutes than what was actually said, but I'll take it.  I'm on radar now as a writer of fine repute.  I'm Speech Writer to the Stars.  I'll be writing for the President next. It's just a matter of time.

And now for something completely different...

If you ever needed encouragement, or proof that the Impossible can be done:  observe the mini, mighty hummingbird, whose flight has been something of an engineering mystery for many years (actually with new photography technologies, they've kind of got it figured out now, see here).  Yet it can nevertheless hover, zip around at ridiculous speeds, and even fly backwards and upside down for a quick getaway if necessary.  John and I had a nice time watching this little female hovering around the feeder right over our heads on Sunday afternoon, as we were relaxing on the deck.  She announced her arrival with the buzzing of her wings, and we'd get quiet and watch while she buzzed and sipped, and then darted away to rest on a twig nearby.  I'm hoping she has a nest in the yard somewhere.  That's got to be some kind of good luck, right?

Not that I think I've had any shortage of luck lately.  I won't push it.

This weekend was another lazy and indulgent one. When G-rex is out of town, John gets a two-day sleep-over and we laze about like broccoli. It's actually sort of astonishing how little we can accomplish in 36 hours. We did get to Eureka Springs this weekend, just to wander around, people watching and enjoying the town's unique hippy/biker/couples-in-orthopedic-shoes vibe. A little something for everyone. I'm proud that I managed to avoid buying anything non-consumable.

Following that one outing, however, we were pretty much content to sit in chairs on the back patio with our fingers interlaced... listening to music, sipping cocktails and alternately sitting in companionable silence or shooting the shit, trading stories from our pasts, telling jokes, laughing. I think that's the thing that makes me feel so certain about us.  We laugh all the time. We laugh at ourselves, at each other, at stuff that happens. We share laughs at stand-up comics on TV, at movie scenes and things people have said. We share a sense of humor. I can't overstate how important that is. There have been times when I've been sitting at work and remembered something John told me two weeks ago and it still makes me laugh out loud.  I'm sure my coworkers all think I'm nuts.

'Course, chances are they think that anyway.

When I picked up Grayson on Sunday, we swung by John and Rian's for a surprise.  Rian decided to give Grayson her mouse, Chesney.  They have bonded in the few times G has had the opportunity to play with him, and Rian says she doesn't spend much time with the little guy anymore. So they asked me to drop by on Sunday evening so she could make the presentation.

Grayson is thrilled. He was almost speechless when she handed him Chesney's cage, but he sang a little "Chesney" song all the way home, and held the cage in his lap. He told me this morning he couldn't sleep when he went to bed last night because he was keeping one eye open to watch Chesney in the tank across the room. When he went to bed he made a stop at Chesney's cage to say goodnight. It was a very thoughtful gift for a sweet, gentle kid with a big, open heart.  

I'm no longer surprised, but I'm always touched by G's gentleness. He handles that little mouse so tenderly, and takes such unadulterated joy in it  He has a kind and gentle soul, my boy. I love that in him and fear for him because of it. The world is tough for the gentle and kind, sometimes. Our hearts are so tender, and the Real World we encounter can be so oblivious. Yet I still believe that the Gentle, the Sensitive, and the Kind live something of a richer, more rewarding existence than those more calloused. I think there's a whole spectrum of experience that we can access, but which is completely unknown and unknowable to others.

It's worth it--I believe it's worth the hurt feelings and self doubt and the pure, unremitting heartache of a sensitive existence -- to see the world the way we do. There's love in a little mouse, joy in a hummingbird, humor in our own mistakes and mis-steps, and transcendence in a moment of silence, fingers interlaced, looking at the sky.

Drops of Blood

“Writing is easy: All you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.”

I have been familiar with this quote for years, but only recently bothered to find out its source.  It's from Gene Fowler, a journalist who died in 1960.  I had never heard of him before I went to identify his quote. But I think I'm a fan.  He's also credited with having said “Sometimes I think [my writing] sounds like I walked out of the room and left the typewriter running.”

Writing as a full-time job is still pretty new to me.  And I am still not quite used to the hopalong, drag-and-shuffle rhythm of it.  For twenty years I've been in one high-energy, high-productivity job after another:  veterinary tech work; managing the equipment, supplies and logistics of an art camp; doing PR and logistical support for a science camp; functioning as a one-woman PR and marketing office.  Now I'm forced to slow the pace, focus on one thing at a time, and focus my attention to a laser beam to get things done with as much precision as possible.  No longer is quantity the same thing as quality.  No longer does efficiency always trump perfection. Sometimes, yes.  But not always.

It's a strange transition for me. For one thing, I'm accustomed to working fast--too fast in some instances. When it comes to editing, faster is not necessarily better. I'm having to train myself to slow down, think things through carefully, and cross check. Is Havarti cheese really capitalized? Are compound adjectives hyphenated only when they come before the noun they modify.  Does a comma or an em-dash work better here?  It's the kind of close reading and dogged consistency my busy, efficient little soul wants not to be bothered with.  But it's my job!

And then there's the uncertain nature of the workload. I write, then I send my work out for review and comments, and I wait. Sometimes I'm peppered with a thousand minor things to edit in a day: I'm the queen of the 50-word blurb: a brief bio, a program description, text for lobby signs, emails to members announcing an event. It can feel really trivial until I get something that has some horrifying error in it and realize that it would absolutely have gone public that way if I wasn't there to catch it. (Like the time I was handed program text that referred to Harriet Beecher Stowe as an "African American author.") Sometimes I have larger projects to organize, edit or re-work.  Sometimes I'm just becalmed in the space between.  Now, despite what the state of my housekeeping might lead you to believe, I'm not actually all that comfortable doing nothing. It makes me feel jittery... guilty... and anxious, as if there surely must be something terribly important that I'm overlooking or have completely forgotten.

On the other hand, I enjoy the writing and editing, and I'm learning more about my subject every day. I surprise myself sometimes by actually recognizing certain styles and schools of art, and I'm gradually learning the names of the artists of the most popular works, though certainly not of every work. One of the things that befuddled me most when I first arrived at Crystal Bridges was the maddening habit everyone has of referring to the works by the last name of the artist, not by the title of the work. When I think about it, that comes in handy when dealing with contemporary works which, seven times out of ten, are titled "Untitled."  But I didn't know Shinn from Shinola at first.

It's helped a lot, believe it or not, to start giving tours. For one thing, it gets me back out in the galleries to mingle with the public and the art I'm supposed to be representing. For another, it has made me internalize some of the things about the artwork that I've heard and read in a way that sort of makes me feel as if I actually know what I'm talking about. I don't.  Not really.  But I feel as if I do.

In which Big News arrives with surprisingly little Bang

Last weekend shortly after dropping Grex off with his dad, I received an email from said dad, informing me that dad's girlfriend is pregnant, and they would be notifying our son of his impending sibling over the weekend.  They will also be moving into a new house together this summer.

That's a lot for anyone to process.  Especially if that anyone is just eleven. Nevertheless, I assured the X that I thought G would handle the news well, and would no doubt be excited to be a big brother, long after he surely thought all hope was lost.  And true to form, Grayson was indeed delighted at the prospect of having a little brother or sister, and took all the upcoming changes in stride, as he always does.

I won't say I didn't have my moments of introspection over the news. Having lost a baby some five years ago, and getting very near the age when all possibility of child-bearing will be gone, there's a certain regret for me that someone else will be providing G with all the joy and excitement of a new sibling. He will have a whole new family, with relationships that I share no part of. Nevertheless, despite those brief feelings of regret, I was surprised to discover that what would have been deeply unsettling news to me six weeks ago is now downgraded to a brief blip on my emotional radar.

That has everything to do with John.  Meeting him has opened up doors and windows in my heart. And I find that, astonishingly, I have an entirely new outlook on life: one that is able to look forward with hope and backward without bitterness. Grim emotional baggage I've carried doggedly for years seems to have melted away, as well. What miracle is this?

I spent a lot of time after my divorce being deeply resentful of the fact that the X seemed able to simply jettison our marriage, snip away those pesky ten years, and start fresh. At 36, he could pretty easily re-enter the single life. And with no full-time child to care for, that life was his own to do with what he wished.  At 42, it just wasn't the same for me. I doubt many women feel all that comfortable getting back out on the dating market after 40. God knows I wasn't getting any younger or better looking. When he took up with a woman 13 years my junior last summer, I found myself dealing with a whole new round of bitterness that he was starting a brand new life, while mine still seemed damaged and lame:  stagnant at best or, at worse, spiraling toward some inevitable solitary denouement as a Crazy Dog Lady. I dreaded the day when he would start a new family, something that was almost certainly no longer an option for me, even if I found someone to start over with at 44.

But the Universe stepped in, and John appeared.  It was like that moment in the Wizard of Oz when the scene changes from grim black and white to glorious, saturated Technicolor. I was ushered into a world I had given up believing in:  a world where there's love and companionship, trust, laughter and truth.  A world with a future.  This small change in perception has made it possible for me to let go of  much of the bitterness of the past three years. I also find that I now have it in my heart to forgive my ex, at least in part. If I'm not quite able to forgive the hurts of our past, I can at least forgive him for his future, and turn to embrace my own. I may not know exactly what that future will be, but I have a sense of hope and excitement that I haven't felt for many years.

No, I'm not likely to have another baby:  to rewind my life and have Overs in the family department. But that's not really what I want.  I have my son. I have enjoyed watching him grow through the various stages of childhood to the ripe old age of eleven. But I'm not particularly interested in going backward. All the adventure--the next Great Frontier--lies ahead. And with complete amazement and gratitude, I have found a companion for the journey.

I can't wait to see what it has in store.