Valentine

Around 3000 people live in the city of Valentine. If you fired up your GPSr, programmed in 42 degrees, 52′, 25″N, and 100 degrees, 33′, 1″W, slid the homing gadget into the plastic grip Velcroed to the dashboard, and drove in the direction of the crosshair blips on your map of light, you’d arrive at the most northern border of Nebraska, smack dab in the center of the state line.

That’s Valentine.

Each year in the month of February, thousands of hopeless romantics send letters to Cupid’s mailbox in “Heart City”to be embossed with one of three different Valentine cachets. The red ink postal stamp from America’s heartland adds a little fuel to the fire of a juicy Valentine’s Day.

If you think Nebraska’s a dull state, reset the synaptic button. Fire again. It’s one of my favorite places on the planet.

Kool-Aid and CliffsNotes and the Vise-Grip were all invented in Nebraska. The largest Powerball payout, $365 million, was split 8 ways on February 6th, 2006 by ConAgra workers from Lincoln. Both Malcolm X and Brandon Teena were born in Nebraska. As were Henry Fonda, Hilary Swank, and Marg Helgenberger, blood spatter expert and forensic supervisor Catherine Willows from the original CSI.

Need I say more?

Okay, let me go on to the 450,000 other reasons I fell in love with Nebraska – the sandhill cranes . Each year in early spring, 90% of the population traverse the Central Flyway stopping to fatten up and rest along the Nebraska stretch of the 310 mile, 10,000 year old Platte River. And they’ve been doing this for 9 million years.

At sunrise, 10 feet from the river bed, in the dark underbelly of a blind near Kearney, I’ve watched as the cranes roost on one foot, sleeping in 6 inches of water. I’ve seen them probe the grasslands, meadows, and farmers’ fields near Grand Island foraging for leftover corn, insects, earthworms, and rodents. I’ve listened from 7 miles away to the ancient and throaty rolling trumpet sweeping toward Rowe Sanctuary, and peered through Nikon binoculars at kettles of cranes staging over Gibbon, their gangly voluminous shadows eclipsing the moon in a single sweep of midnight dusk.

Convinced?

I saved the creme de la creme for last – I love Nebraska for her writers: Ted Kooser , the United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004 – 2006, Willa Cather , Terry Goodkind, DeBarra Mayo, John Neihardt, Weldon Kees, Ana Marie Cox , founder of the political blog, Wonkette, and Jonis Agee, Director of the Nebraska Summer Writers’ Conference. Maybe they weren’t all born Cornhuskers. But many lived most of their lives in the great Nebraskan plains.

How long do you have to live somewhere to call it home?

I’m a Minnesota transplant. I moved here in 1984. When people ask me where I’m from, I say, “I’m from Minnesota.” And sometimes, so as not to be pigeonholed, I add the caveat, “But I grew up Down South, lived in central Pennsylvania in my teens, and moved West to Montana in my 20’s. I’ve been around.” Creative license – I have to protect my image as a bohemian.

Willa Cather by Carl van Vechten, photo taken January 22, 1936, released to public domain, Library of Congress

On my last road trip through Nebraska, my air conditioning died and I stopped to cool off at a rest stop just north of Red Cloud (the town is named for the great Oglala Lakota chief who was born near there) where Willa Cather grew up. Did I mention she won the Pulitzer in 1923 for One of Ours?

I struck up a conversation with Ella, a gray haired, bespectacled, 70-ish woman in a denim shirt and blue jeans (this is common in the Midwest) standing behind the map counter. I told her I was returning from a writing retreat in Taos and that on my first trip to the Mabel Dodge Luhan House in 2001, I stayed in the Cather room where Willa once slept on one of her pilgrimages to New Mexico.

I told her I read that Cather had met D. H. Lawrence in 1924. And wasn’t that the same year he and Frieda visited Mabel and Tony, bunked in the Pink House in Taos, and lived with Dorothy Brett at Kiowa Ranch near San Cristobal? Ella’s eyes sparkled. When she found out I was a writer, she talked to me for nearly 45 minutes, a reprieve from the dog day glare of August, about Nebraska writers and history. Her great, great grandparents homesteaded there. It is in her blood.

Willa Cather once said, “The history of every country begins in the heart of a man or a woman.” Maybe the history of every country can also be traced through the lineage of everyman who lives at the heart of its land.

Kearney, Nebraska marks the exact central point between Boston and San Francisco. Valentine, at the seat of Cherry County, sits dead center in the heart of America. Everything east and west is just an appendage.

Cupid knows. He shoots his letters off straight from Valentine.

-posted on red Ravine Wednesday, February 14th, 2007

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PRACTICE — Essay – Dreaming – 15min

I am in la la land this morning. I had such a hard time getting up. The darkness wanted to hold me. I’ve been in hibernate mode. A few weeks now. Maybe since Christmas. The days are short. The nights long.

When I think of writing an essay, I draw a blank. I scare myself. What kind of writer am I if I never finish anything? Sometimes I think I’ve forgotten how to say anything worthwhile. Practices of dribble about the details of the day. But practice keeps me writing. Practice keeps me sane. I am glad that I practice. Practice keeps me connected to other writers.

Writers who struggle, too. Every writer struggles. Comments from famous writers allude to that struggle, time and time again. Still, I believe it’s a worthwhile song. Why else would I still be singing?

Liz and I suffered through the beginning of the 6th season of American Idol last night, mostly because it was in Minneapolis. I remember when the gang of 3 were here and the downtown streets like Hennepin Avenue were crowded with those following dreams. You have to admire their tenacity. Or stupidity. As Liz and I covered our ears a few times, scrunched up our faces and laughed into each other eyes, we wondered who had told some of these people they could sing.

Sometimes I get that feeling about the writing. Like I write in a big vacuum. Because practice, by nature, and the rules, as guidelines, create safety in not commenting, the world would not know if I could write or not. And neither would I. It’s mostly a matter of trust. Faith.

I look back over the last 2 or 3 years – the time I won that contest all the way up until now. I have sent out maybe 2 finished pieces since then. A person in my other writing group thinks I got scared by that little bit of success. And perhaps I did. It was the first thing I ever submitted anywhere. And it was successful by most writing standards. But maybe it sucked me back into my shell.

I did have that stint of going to coffee shops and reading out loud at Open Mic with other fledgling writers. That was good for confidence. And I had that radio show on KFAI with two writers, one I never see anymore. I was actually pretty good on that. I talked about being a writer. But then I just stopped with the out there stuff. Why?

I’m thinking about the time it takes to write. Not just time. Alone time. And I know that living with someone means I have to be hypervigilant about taking alone time to write. If Liz and I are around the same space, unless I say that I’m going to write, her energy will mingle with mine. Sometimes that is distracting. And sometimes it’s supportive.

It’s learning the difference that is my challenge at the moment. And how to get enough space for writing. It’s up to me to take it. Not her. I’m scared to take it. It’s so comfortable being partnered. A Cancer, I am most comfortable in relationships, though I was alone for 14 years. I don’t miss living alone. I love living with Liz, partnering, setting up a home together. I only miss all the space to write that I had created around myself when I lived alone.

But you know what? I hated living there at the end. The place made me lethargic. And I didn’t write anyway. I fretted about how much junk there was around me and my lack of motivation to change it. And I spent a lot of gas, time, and money going back and forth out to Liz’s. Or her coming to my house. I don’t have that anymore.

I fret about different things now – there are still unpacked boxes in the bedroom. When will I go through them? And when should I start looking for a studio space?

I think another small space that Liz and I share rent on will help the smallness of the space we live in now. It’s cozy. And quiet. And I love the house. But it needs one more room. A writing room.

The truth is you do have to hole up to write. And you can’t stop and start. You need to be able to keep going when you are on a roll, at least until you get to a good place to stop. It’s not realistic to have all the time in the world. Unless you are independently wealthy. Most of us have to work.

But the carving of space – carving it out, up, around the writing – that takes courage. And guts.  You have to want it pretty bad. And drop everything to write. Knowing it’s not going to give you everything. No, it’s not. But it sure gives a lot.

I have a lot of fear around writing this essay. And I don’t know why. I am fearless in almost every area of my life right now. I roll swiftly along in the blog work. I’m putting a lot of energy into my business and relationship. My recovery is going well. But this damned essay? Why am I letting it get the best of me?

It’s become my Achilles heel. And I am letting it. At some point, I will also let it turn. The energy. But it might be too late to get it done before the first week of February. I’m going to carve out some time this weekend to seriously see if I have anything to offer in terms of an essay. I will tell Liz I am going to work on it. And I will honor my commitment to myself.

Saturday is almost shot. Friday I have to do client work. That leaves Saturday night. Maybe that’s a good ploy. Liz has to study anyway. Maybe I can pull an all night thing – work my tail off, get as far as I can. What do I have to lose?

My dignity. Or some idea that I can’t write. Okay, I’m humble. I’m willing to sacrifice those two things for a day. Pride doesn’t help in the great effort to write. And neither does ego. I have to leave them swimming at the bottom of the spittoon at the door. That’s a good place to start. A spittoon. That gives me an idea. Okay. I’m off.

Tuesday, January 23rd, 2007

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