Rain Smear, First Drafts, and the National Council of Teachers of English

You should see the view through my office window, I wrote to John V., one of my earliest dance teachers, and still a dear, even if he's moved to Germany. Take a picture, he wrote back, and I did—the panes smeary with rain, the sky beyond somehow broken. It was the end of a day in which a long-loved novel found its final line, in which I stopped holding my breath, and exhaled. Anna sent a box of royal riviera pears from California—five of them, green golden. They arrived on my stoop the very instant I typed the book's final words. I don't know how she does this, how she is always here when the big things happen, but, in fact, she does and is.

In any case, in any case: A first draft. I will wait, let time do its thing. I will then work it through all over again. And then again. And more.

In the meantime, I'll be attending the National Council of Teachers of English conference at the Philadelphia Convention Center on November 22nd. I'll be traveling this way and that, among the booths, then attending, thanks to Laura Lutz, the HarperCollins-sponsored ALAN cocktail event before heading off for what should be a pretty spectacular dinner. I wonder if any of you plan to be there. If you do, I hope you'll let me know. I would love to meet you.

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The Genius of Dance

Every single lesson, it's there: the genius of dance in the blood of the truest dancers. How I crave just a fraction of what they know about the insistence of the "and" beat, the telegraphics of thighs, the power of the pause. Wait, and listen, say the teachers of dance. Stop and feel. As if all that is required is a greater intuition, a greater willingness to stand up straight and practice the art of anticipating nothing, then doing the something that is in that moment called for.

Dancing requires the woman to be prepared for anything and to precipitate nothing at the same time. It requires her to assume a stance of beauty, even if old is what she feels that day, or awkward. It requires a woman to listen. On my best dancing days, I exist outside the claw of myself.

I know nothing. I seek all. I grow exhausted with the endless want of doing one thing well.

The next day I return to my desk, the story I am writing newly perched on the shelf of itself.

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