Small kindness on the dawn of the apocalypse
From where this desire to burn down our lives and begin again? It is an urge to be resisted.
Small kindnesses tip the balance in favor of toeing the line. The TSA woman in Sitka who makes an exception and drains your water instead of making you go through security again. The flight attendant who – seeing the situation – passes over a free meal. And the woman on a rainy night in Capitol Hill, in Seattle, on a layover, who asks do you, too, smell fried bread in the air?
I am in Philadelphia working at Greensaw. Along with the rest of the team, getting the house in order. The trauma of this fall – it feels like coming out of a heavy fog. Occasional flashes of lightning. Recognizing, with a shudder that moves from the crown of your head to your toes, the inelegance of a person you once thought so elegant.
In January I’ll return to Alaska – the pic here pulling out from the cannery on a sea cucumber tender at 8 am – and my sweet dog, and the Adak, and teaching salsa. Rooms are rented out – the boat has wonderful caretakers. Much depends on Greensaw, and also on the book, which is just beginning to gain traction in that wacky world of New York publishing. It’s the story of a woman from South Philadelphia who goes to Alaska to become a rough-sawn fishergirl, the Cuban lover she marries, and her carpenter man left back home. Bear attacks! Storms at sea! Deer hunt! It’s got it all. But more about that in a moment.
Before leaving the tug, I had extensive conversations by the fire in the salon about recent Adak hauntings. Renters have reported waking up to men in engine suits disappearing down the companion way into the belly of the boat. Of oak doors shaking, as if someone wants to get in out of the cold; Dani rises from the fire, opens the door to a chill wind, and the sound stop. We’re thinking of selling tours.
One renter reserved a room on the Adak for the month of December. A Born Again Christian anticipating, I do believe, the end of the Long Count in the Mayan Calendar. If the end of this 5,125-day period indeed draws our existence we now understand it to a close, Xander – since I will be in Philadelphia on December 21st – will captain the boat to Aleutkitna bay, and we’ll ride out the upheaval. Set up our distillery, hunt deer with snares, and set crab pots. That’s the plan – assuming, of course, we don’t get washed away by a tsunami.
Before coming back east I did some sea cucumber fishing, and Cal and I made it into the alpine up Gavan. If there’s a more beautiful spot on earth I surely don’t know where it might be.
Now I sit in a coffeeshop in Philadelphia – waiting for a lumber delivery from Woodland. We’re doing a bathroom – and just discovered a gas lantern line from the early 20th century. Sure don’t have that stuff in Alaska. Speaking of gas lanterns, a few block from the jobsite we witnessed a Mummers warehouse going up in flames yesterday – thus the sensational pic at the beginning.
My existence, since arriving in Philly a week ago, has been exceptionally triangular: Greensaw, the jiu-jitsu studio, and my manuscript. I’ve been living above the woodshop, in a hastily built plywood garrett that the spiders have recently renovated, spinning their webs with gusto, their webs quickly becoming hammocks for dust rising up from the sanders below. Tufts of cotton from empty Advil containers, empty lighters, random keys. Dishes get done at the bathroom vanity, and one must set a timer in the shower for the ten gallon hot water heater. It works. I like how you can put a hot skillet on the plwyood while watching Louis C.K. before sleep and not worry.
It’s nice to see, with the long runs and jiu jitsu, muscles in the stomach return, push forward; the body grow taut, streamline. Noticing, in flashes, the parallels between jiu jitsu and writing – basics basics basics, and then style will appear – patience is key. Starting slowly and speeding up. You can attempt an americana when someone is in your guard, or try the komora, only when you know ten other escapes and defenses. So it is for writing. I’m relearning the craft.
I’ve spent good time, including part of last week, in New York, getting a crash course on the writing industry. Had a meeting at Random House – gulp you say, going through the lobby, drooling over Absalom Absalom, I’m not worthy! – and finally a dinner with a badass agent who believes in the book, and will represent it. Oh please, my one or two imaginary readers of this blog, cross your imaginary fingers. This agent, who I look forward to doing some serious drinking with in the near future, has asked for certain changes which strangely, freakily, mirror what happened in Alaska. He asked me if I could make these revisions. I said I could.
And so suddenly there you are, in a cab in Chelsea at four in the morning, staring at a funky shop advertising Artists and Fleas, with the NYPD keeping watch nearby. Six hours earlier, on the corner of 16th and Sixth Avenue, you have been offered representation – yes, this editor, possibly this editor would be a good fit. And have you thought about –?
Standing in the shower, racing against the odds to rinse shampoo from my hair before the hot water gives out, I can’t help but wonder where – where would I be without close friends, loved ones, and writing? Surely somewhere so far away not even I could find myself.
