That's Going in the Blog!

We sat in the bleachers at CU's Folsom Field on Memorial Day, watching elite female runners stream into the stadium to finish their 10K race. Around us, "citizen's race" athletes—Rob, Aden, William, and I among them—leaped to our feet, clapping and stomping on the metal stands until the roar became a thunderous roll of applause that seemed to lift the runners across the finish line. They waved to the crowd, moving impossibly fast—so much faster than we'd just jogged the 10K course of the Boulder Bolder. I told my kids I had chills, and William grinned. "That's going in the blog!"

I've been writing "Wild Specific Tangent" since 2009, when Aden was eight, William six, and Daniel three The kids read my posts occasionally, sometimes offering feedback when I send a link requesting it, but mostly they maintain that typical child distance from a parent's work. When I told William I'd write about both the moment at Folsom Field and his comment, he simply grinned. "You should," he said.

The kids have an intuitive feel for what will strike me as worth keeping. They sense it faster than I do as I process and discard ideas throughout the week—some too personal, some too obvious, many too political. They know what matters. They know what should stay.

I'm toying with compiling a second book of my favorite entries. The first volume spanned seven years (2009-2017). We're nine years down the road now, and I'm either overdue or the interest in rewriting and sorting has simply expired. Would it matter if I put my musings on paper, or should they just live in the wilds of the internet, accumulating like digital dust? The short accounts might matter to my kids someday when I can no longer tell them our family stories, when my memory fails and I can't retrieve the odd congratulatory moment. (My days of jogging a 10K are coming to an end sooner rather than later.)

But this day deserves capturing. Memorial Day with all of us moving together—William bobbing and weaving out of our walk-jog rhythm to finish in 8:30 miles while Rob led the way for Aden and me, breaking into a jog each time my hips, knees, and ankles persuaded me we could manage it. Watching the elite runners consume the course in a third of our time, then the sounds of "Star Spangled Banner" drifting across the field, the military flyover sharp and precise overhead, the salute that made my eyes wet as I thought of Dad. A day heavy with meaning—Rob recovering from his surgery, all of us fit enough to run six miles together, free snacks and a jot of patriotism to complete the afternoon.

A day that shouldn't dissolve into the endless parade of ordinary days. William was right. It belongs in the blog—not because it's momentous, but because it's real. Because someday when the details fade, I'll want to remember the exact cadence of our running together, the sound of that metal bleacher roar, the way grief and gratitude tangled together on a field honoring the dead. Because my children will want to remember what it felt like to move through the world with their parents, to stop for a moment and say this matters, capture this, don't let it disappear.

Perhaps that's what these seventeen years of writing have become—not a record of accomplishments or epiphanies, but evidence of a life lived, witnessed, held. Permission to say: this moment, this day, this conversation with my son—it all counts.

The View from 100,000

On September 6, 2021, Wild Specific Tangent hit a milestone of 100,000 views. Perhaps 20,000 of those views can be attributed to my mother, husband and sister, but even subtracting their regular viewership, I've reached more than a few of you - and l am grateful.

Twelve years of anthologizing anecdotes of my family's life, and I've learned: the short form of blogging is my happy medium, my children like the blog posts that mention them (but don't say too much about them), a good quote encapsulates a week's worth of musing, humor is the oat milk of life, and making a reader feel something lifts my feet off the ground.

The past almost two years of the pandemic, in combination with political extremism and unholy headlines about climate change, have made me think about legacy. Even if I survive COVID, hurricanes, headlines, and misogynistic politicians, I will inevitably "shuffle off this mortal coil." My kids will be my most profound legacy, but I also have this little bit of writing to leave behind, the Clavadetscher and Dravenstott names commingling in long-winded perpetuity over the internet.

That's not enough, not yet, but it's a good start. I appreciate the good humor and merciful aspect of my readers and welcome more comments and feedback (unless it departs from their aforementioned good humor and mercy). I'm grateful that my mother could read my blog posts to my father before his death and that he got to see the printed compilation of eight years' worth of stories. This life is all about connection, and I savor the tiny threads of connection between me and my readers, all 100,000 times that writing and reading brought us together.

Letting Go, Just a Little Bit

At the dinner table last Thursday, William asked to go skiing with several friends over the long President's Day weekend. My heart dropped into my feet as I mentally covered the list of reasons why the trip was a bad idea: 1. COVID 2. Potential skiing injury 3. Lack of ski gear that fit 4. Loss of upcoming swim season (injury) and 5. COVID. We gave the parental answer equivalent to "I'm temporarily speechless" otherwise known as "maybe."

Over the next two days, William provided details such as the phone number of the adult who was accompanying the teenagers, the link to ski rental, the detailed itinerary and food he would need to bring. His organized mind saw only the plan and its potential, whereas my paranoid brain processed mostly the negative "what ifs." But the plan was ultimately solid and so we let him go, our senior who is almost eighteen but whose freedom has been seriously curtailed by the pandemic. 

We outfitted William with my old snow pants, Rob's ski jacket, helmet, goggles and gloves. It's been several years since he skied, due mostly to swim season as championship meets usually occur in February and March. Our kids learned how to ski when they were little, and as I watched William don the adult gear, my mind swooped back to memories of our six-year-old on short skis, rolling over moguls and diving down "blacks." I hoped he didn't aspire to those feats after such a long layoff with his foot or more of additional height throwing off his center of gravity.

While I was on the phone with my sister yesterday, discussing the rough draft of my book, William Snapchatted me to say that his ski day was over and there had been "no injuries, just lots and lots of fun." I put Karen on speakerphone so I could read his message and text back "hooray, hooray." I'm sure my flood of relief came through the phone and irritated my son to no end, though he responded with a picture of his smiling face.

Just as we're beginning a long-delayed and downsized process of letting go of our senior, I have to start letting go of the book I reviewed with my sister. It requires more editing before I release it to non-family beta readers, but ultimately it has to leave the safety of my hard drive and fly out into the buffeting winds of public opinion. For the first time, I will try to find a "real" publisher for a piece of my longer writing. Having only self-published before, that statement feels like a declaration of war - on my sanity, self-worth and security. But moving forward means letting go, and exploring new terrain, as William did yesterday, on skis in a foot of fresh powder. 

Seriously, siblings . . .

The great advantage of living in a large family is that early lesson of life’s essential unfairness. - Nancy Mitford

Hurray for November! As the first snowflakes fell this week and the plastic curtain dropped on all of our home repairs, I could only breathe a sigh of relief for the passage of a challenging October. I can walk on flat ground without a limp, we’ve narrowed our “needs repair” list to two items, and the cool weather comes as a holiday-appropriate relief rather than a burden (as long as the roads remain clear!) Last month cracked me in a few places, long enough for many new ideas to get in past my usual certainty and full-speed-ahead attitude. So my head is full to bursting and I have been writing a lot, feeling a tiny bit witty and dare I say – a bit more wise? – than a month ago. Enter . . . my siblings.

I am deeply blessed to have three younger brothers and a younger sister, all of whom intelligent, well-learned, and much wittier than I. They frequently remind me of this regrettable fact, and the most recent balloon-pricking occurred two days ago, while I was catching up on my email at the local library. I had to flee my home as the two workmen at my house were painting the ceilings and hung the entire downstairs in plastic. All pertinent areas were inaccessible (read: refrigerator, phone, computer, to-do list). So I opened my inbox and read with delight an email chain which included all my siblings, ostensibly planning our Christmas gift to my parents. The true purpose of many of the emails was one-upmanship, teasing, and pleas to visit. These were most fun to read, of course.

I eagerly jumped in, wittily (or so I thought) explaining my refugee situation, and spattering my email with words of Spanish – not to impress but because I had been conversing with the repairmen in Spanish all morning and had both languages bouncing around in my head. I sent the email off, with a smile on my face, and barely had to wait five minutes before my sister responded. She said (direct quote here): “I hope the lapses into Spanish don't herald a complete mental breakdown. I felt a little like I was reading an episode of Dora the Explorer-Swiper no swipey!” Well, OK. My grin flattened and my conceit fell like the soufflé I once attempted. She went on to demonstrate her superior wit with this signature line, “Hugs, kisses and awkward back pats!” I had to chuckle at that one, which she later confessed she stole from our youngest brother.

So once again, my sister and (at least one) brother get the jump on me in the wit department. I hope to demonstrate to them that my cracks are actually helping me to achieve wisdom and don’t indicate the deterioration of my mental state. In the meantime, my family keeps it real, reminding me of my extensive faults and yet including me anyway. Hugs, kisses, and awkward back pats to all.

Voices

There are many topics that I could write about today. Rolling through my head are headlines about the shameful and discriminatory immigration law just adopted in Arizona, the travesty of a US mother sending her adopted son back to Russia (by himself), and the possible relationship between global warming and Iceland’s unpronounceable volcano. I will bypass these and focus somewhat selfishly on a little quandary I have with my writing.

Last week I was rejected from the 2010 Colorado Voices program through the Denver Post. In this program writers from across the state are asked to submit several columns to the paper or its online counterpart throughout the calendar year. The guest commentary is unpaid but offers great opportunity for exposure for a writer and her cause(s), not to mention superior editing by Post staff. Along with the kindly rejection letter I received some helpful tips on how to improve my writing and possibly succeed to be a Voice in future years.

Though I seem to have lost this valuable letter (I just finished a desperate 15-minute search), I can remember the gist of it: be clear, be brief and be yourself. In the introductory letter do not issue a resume, but a quick summary of subjects you might cover. Be timely. Don’t take on too much. See? I learn quickly! Though I have never been accused of brevity or of wit, I can attempt improvement.

I need to improve my writing, because it appears to be an activity that I love. If I could help people by writing their stories, it would combine two of my greatest joys. Don’t think I’m running out to judge myself based on one rejection letter; actually, I felt the sting of my own criticism yesterday when I started a new book. It’s by a mom, one who shares many of my values and opinions. Her writing style reminds me of my own (though she is much better) and strangely, I found myself getting bogged down. I felt “preached to.” I am guessing that anyone who reads my entries could feel much the same.

Hope springs eternal, however, and my hope is bolstered by two things I read recently. One item was in the new book, The Genius in All of Us: Why Everything You've Been Told About Genetics, Talent, and IQ Is Wrong by David Shenk. I read a few pages while I browsed in Barnes & Noble last week and discovered this gem by the author, “Intelligence and talent turn out to be about process, not about whether you were born with certain "gifts." It’s not a brand new idea, that persistence and hard work pay off, but to tie the word “genius” to persistence in adulthood (as opposed to operas and mathematical theorems issued by a child prodigy) seems a new and happy twist.

The other motivating factor I discovered in a great book by and about the legendary basketball coach, John Wooden, called (appropriately) Wooden: A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections on and Off the Court by John Wooden and Steve Jamison. I read this last night as I struggled to keep my eyes open under the weight of the day: “Most of us are impatient. As we get a bit older, we think we know more and things should happen faster. But patience is a virtue in preparing for any task of significance. It takes time to create excellence. If it could be done quickly, more people would do it.” (p 191 – italics mine).

I have about as much patience as I have brevity or wit, but I’ll try to sharpen my voice and get it out there. The world is meant to be a great chorus, after all.

Your Precious Voice

"You try to make something from catastrophe and loss, a monument of words. You memorialize your subject, and in the process you memorialize the act of writing and understanding. Then if you're good enough, and lucky, you might stamp on the world a small thing that can remind you and others of the delicate fact of existence, and why we hold it so dearly."

- Johns Hopkins writing professor Bill Loizeaux quoting his professor, Frederick Busch (from http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/11/16/precious-a-movie-that-cracks-open-your-heart/)

Over the weekend a friend and I went to see the movie Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire (www.weareallprecious.com) - leaving us emotionally bankrupt and shaken but profoundly grateful to have seen the film. The magnificent acting and storytelling gave us reason to feel gratitude despite the soul-shattering violence and trauma that Precious undergoes in 1987 Harlem. Leaving aside the major themes of violence, racism, incest and systemic injustice, one thing in particular stuck with us: Precious' teacher urging her students to write. When Precious breaks down (the only time in the film) in her alternative-education classroom, all her teacher says to her (can say?) after hearing the tale of horrific abuse is "write, just write."

Precious does write - slowly and painfully mastering the letters of the alphabet at age 16 - putting down her fears and concerns and personal history in a $1.89 journal that you can pick up at any grocery or drug store. Yet these simple journals work magic on the students, their blank pages providing fuel for ambitions, room to grieve and protest, space to grow. As the students learn the basics of grammar, reading and writing they also learn something more important - they have a voice and someone is interested. I love the quote at the top of this entry because it expresses what the gift of writing can mean; through our stories we can remind each other both of life's fragility and pain, but also of its power and beauty and originality. This comprehension binds us together as shipmates on a strange voyage.

We are a species that relies on stories to give meaning to the roller-coaster joys and sorrow of life. Memorization and verbal oration of the Quran was the only way that these holy words were passed down before scribes began to write them (In the Land of Invisible Women, Qanta A. Ahmed, MD). The Bible's authors relied on oral traditions and aboriginal cultures still rely on storytelling to explain the origins of earth, of the origin of men and women, and why bad things happen in our lives. Live theatre, music, movies all serve to tell our stories, reprising the grand old themes of love, loss, longing, joy, in new ways that fit our times and places. Without the ability to tell, sing, write or act out stories something potent and beautiful would be lost.

Precious virtually gives birth to the self she imagines in her head through the power of writing down her hopes and ideas. The life she led, the novel it generated, and the movie based on the novel has now reached millions of people and made an impact the size of which no one can truly know. Not every story will reach out in the same way, with the same magnitude, but each story will ripple out and affect those who hear it, if we have the courage to write them down, act them or sing them out loud.