Thomas Sullivan

Ah. You’re back for Part 2. Please be seated. The guards are now sealing the exits.

Last month I wrote about optimism. I don’t think I ever actually used the word optimism, because I was talking mostly about pessimism and cynicism. Does that make me a pessimist? Hmmm. An optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds; a pessimist fears that’s true. Pick a color on the spectrum between the two, and color me anything but black, even though I drive a black car, like to wear black, and love Noir 86% dark chocolate bars. The thing of it is, as I tried to say in Part 1, there’s a lot of self-fulfilling prophecy in the attitudes one takes, particularly for people who want any kind of perfection or dare to risk failure, as writers must do. Hope makes you vulnerable and takes a little courage. You may deflect some disappointment or temper some shock by setting the bar of expectations low, but then why bother getting out of bed? If you’re going to do that, my advice is to postpone life and age as little as possible until you’re ready to get in the game. “A life without living, still is lost,” as the song goes. If you’re going to live at all, live large and sweat not the obstacles.

Humdrum scripted lives should be reserved for 24-hour insects: hatch, mate, find a blood meal, lay some eggs (if you’re of that persuasion), then die. Take your time dying if you want. Nothing much between laying the eggs and dying, so don’t suffer from useless things like hope. Just avoid getting swatted – pain – and veg out passively. Life sucks and then you die. Starting at 25 hours, though, we are into a whole new sunrise. Once you get that far, might as well die from a lethal dose of happiness, which means dust off the dreams you had before the world taught you to say “ouch!” Forget just minimizing unhappiness. Dare to be happy big-time and reach for whatever your perfect life is. This includes such reprehensible endeavors as becoming a writer. One needs only paper and pencil to become a writer, actually. In fact, a Taco Bell bathroom wall and a crayon will do. Be read by the next bad chimichanga customer, and you become a writer with a readership. Sell something to a publisher, and you can claim legitimacy in the marketplace. But first – as esteemed writer Richard Steinberg says – you must “Believe!” Miracles seldom happen to cynics.

I was a cynic once. Still am when it comes to humor. But down deep I’m always looking to max out the best of life. You can want to be happy, but if you don’t clear the red lights and the fear of driving, you can’t possibly reach your destination or even enjoy the journey. I dunno when it was I decided all this, or even if I ever did. Maybe it just came naturally, like a feeling. But I remember things like a coach telling me after I went what was probably my fastest 200-yard breastroke, “The watch didn’t start,” and I said, “Let’s not discount the possibility that I swam it in nothing flat.” Optimism. It starts the car and makes the lights turn green. Then all you have to do is push your foot on the accelerator. Or maybe it was gambling that taught me to hope. I think I faced a lot of fear early, and I know now what is worth losing – if it comes to that – and what isn’t. It never does come to that. But if it did, you still have everything if you have yourself and your ideals and – if you really hit the jackpot – someone to share them with. In fact, the only way to not have happiness is to live a life of compromise with yourself.

Writers especially have to face down that paper tiger of giving in to compromise, because they so often go against sterile lifestyles and stereotypical thinking. Being true to yourself is an island, and not for everybody, especially if you need a lot of social approval. Hope, fear and superstition float ashore with the tide each day, and you have to pick what stays with you and what you throw back in the ocean. That was another thing I tried to say in Part 1 [http://storytellersunplugged.com/thomassullivan/2007/07/16/thomas-sullivan-3-legged-stallions-hopping-toward-hope-between-the-garden-and-the-vacuum/] of this post. Your island should be self-sufficient, a reward onto itself. Make it that, and you are guaranteed happiness and satisfaction in life. As a writer, though, you are exporting notes in bottles. If and when you succeed in communicating your beauty and your wisdom, or maybe just your entertainment, society may put your island on their maps and give it a name and send tourists to worship you. But if you learned what there is to learn in the process of succeeding, you hate tourists. You even hate being worshipped. Not that I would have any personal experience with that, but it’s evident in the lives of truly fulfilled people who do.

As last month’s column tried to suggest before it reached an ungodly length and split like a cell, the reward is in being who you are, the same inside as you appear to be outside. You prove your point when you reach for perfection and are happy with the peace and honesty it brings. That’s the real success and all you need, really. For sure, fame and fortune are nothing without it. And there’s something else. Something that comes with intimate familiarity with the ups and down of fortune and coincidence. Last month I called it a game played by the gods of irony. I was not being all that metaphorical. In fact, as the person closest to me pointed out, cues and omens abounded in the wake of that article. Sometimes it’s impossible to deny that higher presences are testing you, teasing you, looking to see what you’re made of and whether or not you are worthy of your dreams. But the gods are not without compassion. They never seem to create fates where there are not choices and solutions. And it is usually demanding in the short-term. There are elements of our lives that are so important that they redefine us, change us forever, according to what we do. Emerson called it “compensation.” For me, these big swings of cosmic destiny offset the little inconsequential acts of fate and make all the difference in life. If you fail to recognize or answer one of these, you have truly lost something. I mentioned love and the saving of my son’s life as two such keystones for me. Let me end this column with a letter I wrote my lad after the latter event. Writer’s reflex, I guess. It doesn’t matter now, because years later the letter was published in The Detroit News, and subsequently picked up in a TV pilot by Tony Orlando of Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree fame, so it’s no longer just personal.

The guards have unsealed the exits, but here is the letter…

Dear son,
It may be some years before you read and understand this, but it must be written now. Since coming so close to losing you, I seem to have a need to go over and over what happened, to acknowledge how miraculous it is that you’re still here, and to draw closer to you in every way.

Even though you are only three, I think you feel a little of this, too. Especially the drawing closer part. A bump on the head, a scraped shin, small cuts send you looking for me now as much as for your mother; and there are moments – just brief moments – when I’m carrying you straddled on my hip with your arms around my neck, or holding you on my lap, that I see something much too old in your blue eyes. It may be a fixation on an undefined event in your memory, or a troubled glimpse into life’s grimmer possibilities, but it comes across your face like a trance, passing when you sigh and blink and drop your head on my shoulder. Afterward those delicate fingers of yours go to work on a button of my shirt, or a piece of fuzz from a blanket, and you are uncharacteristically quiet.

So we’re closer. Thank God we still have the opportunity.

The whole thing started when we went on vacation. Maybe it even started before that. Your mother and I took you to register for pre-sc
hool just before we left, and the secretary there said we would have to send for your birth certificate. I don’t know whether it was a premonition or what, but I didn’t want to wait. Somehow I felt you had to be registered before we went on vacation – a kind of insurance policy, I guess, that you would have to come back for pre-school in the fall. It even occurred to me fleetingly that if I lost you, I would register you anyway when I got back. But I quickly banished the whole fear from my thoughts.

Then we were on our way, and the heat and the traffic and the scenery took over. We stopped in the town I grew up in, and after that you and your sister were tired of traveling, so it was: “Sean, stop hitting your sister!” and “Colleen, quit teasing your brother!” from the front seat the rest of the afternoon.

We reached our friends house on Lake Michigan above Traverse City and there spent two wonderful days. There was the kayak, and your sister’s growing shell collection, a bonfire, a tour of a coastguard cutter, and the water slide. You chased the grown-ups through the sand waving noxious, dead “alewives” that had washed up on the beach; and the stony shallows kept you from venturing out too far.

Then it was back in the car and straight through the Upper Peninsula into Canada. The country got more wildly beautiful, more awesomely serene, but I wanted to go where no one was.

The locals directed us to a place where there was nothing on the map and as usual made a fuss over you – the blue-eyed, blond-haired wonder child, precocious, forthright, with the slightly husky voice and engaging mannerisms. Your sister, though only six, was remarkably good about all this attention, as usual, and even showed you off.

Your old man’s penuriousness was as much a factor as solemnity in our final choice of a camp. Snowshoe it was called. Five miles down a nearly impassable lane. It was under reconstruction, having deteriorated to the point of collapse. There were outhouses and primitive facilities, but we were the only guests, and the lake – the lake was a huge donut, as much as 240 feet deep, with an island maybe two miles square. And the whole thing – lake and island and woods – was devoid of humanity. We settled in.

Your mother and I reveled in watching you and your sister prance barefoot down a shaded path to a sunlit beach where you built your castles and found exotic fauna. We explored the lake, and you thrummed on the bottom of the boat scaring the fish away. When the wind whipped up waves off the head of the island your mother insisted I turn back. We had a bouncy return trip, and I could see your white faces looking very small above the orange life jackets.

But the next day you didn’t have a life jacket . . .

There was a waterfall that skimmed warm water off a higher lake, making a swimming lagoon near the camp. A jetty divided it, and I had just gone off the open channel side to cool off, while your sister played on the shore. In the meantime you were telling your mother in the cabin: “It’s about time I learned to swim, I’m going down with daddy and struggle with it!”

Whatever possessed your truculent soul to march down that path toward such a hideous misjudgment, we’ll never know, but down you came to the other side of the jetty. Nor did I know just exactly when you entered the water, nor when the steeply sloped sand gave way under your feet. What I do know is that for some reason I felt compelled to swim around the end of that jetty, and that, even after my eyes were drawn to the cat that sat on the log there, I felt compelled to turn further. And that was when the riveting tragedy finally reached me.

You were just a pair of wrists and spread fingers above the water, and the merest glance of a nearly horizontal face, eyes wide in surprise, mouth gaping and twisted. Even now, I have to stop as I write this . . .

So.

I sprinted to you, maybe twenty yards, head up, and the most I could see was your blond hair massed just below the surface. There was no doubt in my mind you were swallowing water, and I knew it only take seconds sometimes. I remember thinking I’d have to give you mouth-to-mouth, and then my last stroke went down and under you, and my palm on your bottom shot you up and above the water. That critical split second of looking at you, as if on a pedestal, supplied indelible relief, because even though you were purple, your eyes were open and you coughed and gasped.

I have never felt such an intense rush of emotion, or so mixed. You clung to me, and I reassured you, and the first thing you said when you could breathe again was a very stoic and sincere: “You’re gonna hafta teach me to swim, Dad . . .”

Quailing inside, I stood you on the shore and went back in to show-off for you, so you wouldn’t be afraid of the water.

For the next two days that scene kept repeating with increasing vividness in my mind. I marvel at the timing. Had I looked a second or so late, I might never have seen you again in that black water.

What a blessing it is to fret over a mosquito bite on your downy forearm. The moments with you and your sister and your mother seem incredibly precious to me now. As the years pass, and you children grow into your own families, we’ll forget these things. That’s why I want to write this now. So you’ll remember a time and an event and how it made us aware of each other. So you’ll know – I love you, son.
Dad
p.s. I will teach you to swim!

Thanks for reading. Your thoughts are welcome, your attention valued. My web site is below. If you’d like to see more of my writing, please check out the free sample chapter from my latest novel, THE WATER WOLF. And if you’d like to receive the monthly newsletter, ask to be added to the list at: mn333mn@earthlink.net

Thomas “Sully” Sullivan
http://www.thomassullivanauthor.com/

Frank T. Wydra

It is August, and the Sun’s blistering rays blind. Little wonder that Caesar’s adopted son took this brilliant month as his namesake. Yet inside the windowless bowels of the Gonquin the atmosphere is no different than that of any other month. The conditioned air feels silky. The light is muted. Irises open wide.

Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath sit at opposite ends of the table, Sylvia next to me and Virginia at Mary Shelley’s right hand. Spaced between us are Papa, Edgar, and Bram. Cozy company.

Virginia says, “This group of yours, it reminds me a bit of my husband’s Bloomsbury Group.”

Bram chuckling to himself puns, “Dread not, dear lady, we do not play pranks.”

Virginia uncharacteristically reddens. “Not at all what I meant. Mary says your passion is discussing aspects of literature. Though Leonard’s group did not meet as regularly, their focus tended toward the intellectual.”

Al, the Gonquin’s owner, leans over my shoulder and asks, “What was that all about?”

I try to whisper but, in the confines of the Gonquin, sound carries. “Leonard Woolf, Virginia’s husband, was part of an intellectual circle called The Bloomsbury Group. They played a prank on the British Navy by posing as Abyssinian royalty and tricked the Navy into giving them a royal tour of a the battleship HMS Dreadnaught. Caused a stir at the time.”

Mary, perhaps to redirect the discussion, perhaps to assert control, perhaps both, says, “While the sun shines so brightly outside, it is so gloomy in here, as if we were in Plato’s cave, which brings to mind Emerson’s assertion, ‘There is no object so foul that intense light will not make it beautiful.’ Is that what we do as we write? Illuminate ugly things?”

Papa, wags his head and says, “Of course. Whether it be directly or through metaphor, thoughtful writing shines a spot on the human condition.

Edgar says, “Perhaps, though, Emerson is mistaken. Perhaps we, as writers, do a disservice by illuminating the ugly. How can any writing no matter how brilliant make rape, molestation, or genocide beautiful? And if it could, do we want it too?”

There is silence around the table. Only Edgar has the pluck to challenge Emerson’s insight.

To my surprise it is Sylvia who breaks the hush. “Dear Edgar, that is rubbish. What you suggest is nothing more than self-censorship. Things need to be written. Nothing stinks like a pile of unpublished writing.”

Echoing her sentiment, Virginia says, “Mental fight means thinking against the current, not with it. It is our business to puncture gas bags and discover the seeds of truth.

Edgar says, “Yes, but in illuminating evil, savagery, we make it understandable, acceptable, commonplace, more likely to be imitated in the future.”

Bram says, “As when Capote made the monstrous murderers In Cold Blood human.” He rudely aims an accusing finger at Papa. “By the time he finished the book he seemed more attached to the killers than to the victims.”

Edgar, seemingly glad to have an ally, says, “Exactly.”

Virginia shakes her head and jumps in before papa can. “On the outskirts of every agony sits some observant fellow who points and writes. Someone has to die in order that the rest of us should value life more. Nothing has really happened until it has been recorded.”

Mary says, “But sometimes the illumination is so painful. Styron’s Sophie’s Choice comes to mind. What purpose was served by illuminating poor Sophie’s agony.”

Virginia gives Mary a strange look and turns away. It is as if the choice of this particular book as an example is an unwelcome mirror.

Sylvia says, “Everything in life is writable about if you have the guts to do it and the imagination to improvise. Dying is an art, like everything else.” She pauses, as if to reflect, then strips her soul clean. “I do it exceptionally well. I do it so it feels like hell. I do it so it feels real.” A melancholy smile. “I guess you could say I’ve a call.”

Mary, as if understanding Virginia’s anguish, places a hand on hers, but says to Sylvia, “Yes, but that does not address the question. What is served by illuminating Sophie’s plight? Is it no more than voyeurism?”

Papa harrumphs and says, “I will tell you. The story is not about Sophie. It is about those who would create utopia. The Nazi’s were driven by the fantasy of creating a such a world. They were not so different from Stalin or Pol Pot who killed millions to create their version of utopia.”

Virginia, back with us, nods her head, “Utopias are phantoms. It is far harder to kill a phantom than a reality. They are never the work of a single person. Yet, great bodies of people are never responsible for what they do.”

“There you have it,” Papa says. “As a writer Styron brought the Nazi horror down to the agony of a single person. He cast a light that illuminated the evil.”

Bram says, “What was more evil, the killing of the boy or forcing Sophie to make a choice?

Mary says, “Are there degrees of evil or is it an absolute?”

Papa says. “In the abstract evil is an intellectual exercise. For most of us the bomb dropped on Hiroshima was an abstraction. Something distant. But when Hersey wrote Hiroshima showing the effect on five Japanese lives, the piece matched the blinding illumination of the explosion. Say what you will about the saving of a million American lives, the book had power. The question is, which light was stronger, that of the bomb or the book?”

Virginia says, “Only God can answer that. I read the book of Job last night; I don’t think God comes out well in it.” She shuddered, closed her eyes and shook her head. “I hate war. Yet, to be honest, Hersey wrote of things past. I can only say that the past is beautiful because one never realizes an emotion at the time. It expands later, and thus we don’t have complete emotions about the present, only about the past.”

Mary, always the marm, says, “Back to Edgar’s point. When we as writers illuminate a horror are we inuring it to our readers, making the horrific acts acceptable by rendering them under the light of art?”

Virginia says, “Fiction is like a spider’s web, attached ever so slightly perhaps, but still attached to life at all four corners. Often the attachment is scarcely perceptible. The beauty of the world, which is so soon to perish, has two edges, one of laughter, one of anguish, cutting the heart asunder. Yet at its core is truth. Sometimes horrid truth. If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people.”

Bram, who has made his reputation showcasing horror, says, “Sometimes horrible acts are not obvious. Take, for instance, a person, a family, a corporation, a government sucking life from some innocent in the darkness of night. Is that not evil? Yet it can not be addressed unless it is illuminated. The shining of light is why we exist.”

Virginia says, “Every secret of a writer’s soul, every experience of his life, every quality of his mind is written large in his works. Yet there are horrors we do not acknowledge. For most of history, Anonymous was a woman. Is that not a horror?”

Sylvia seems to agree, saying, “We talk to God but the sky is empty. How frail the human heart must be. No more than a mirrored pool of thought. I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead; I lift my eyes and all is born again. But life is long. And it is the long run that balances the short flare of interest and passion. As writers shine their light they must take the long view.”

Mary says, “So, in the end, writers writing about life illuminate injustice and the weakness of man, and that makes it beautiful.”

Heads nod.

Note: Most o
f Woolf’s and Platt’s observations are quotes from things they have said or written, and, as usual, seasoned to the taste of this writer.”

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Monday, August 13, 2007