“You should write something longer, Dad. And read it like a lecture so people can watch it, and have it written so people can read it. You can reach a big audience that way.”

“Sounds good.”

So what should I write? What should I lecture about? A lecture requires a different approach and presupposes an audience.

Hmm…

I just finished reading Tony Hillerman’s Hunting Badger. The paperback. At the end of the novel, after a very satisfying conclusion, the publisher printed:

Coming in Fall 2001

The long-awaited memoir from New York Times best-selling author Tony Hillerman
Life Among the Literati.

Honest, self-effacing, humble autobiography with behind-the-scenes accounts of the stages of writing, re-writing, eventual publication. And Hillerman, irresistibly loveable, putting things in perspective. And, because he obviously knew me so well, ending with the sentence, “How good it is to be with the woman you love on such a rainy night.”

And, since he was writing about the process of writing, of course I thought again about “Why I write,” and “Why I write the way I do.”

I’ve written about that subject many times before, like a rat gnawing a big chunk of cheese.

Nothing quite definitive, and I’ve already decided I won’t/can’t write the last word because there isn’t one.

And Hillerman grabs me, inspires me, ever since my first encounter when a student introduced me to his work, overcoming my initial resistance, and immediately, after the first few pages, I became a convert, then acolyte.

Hillerman. He writes directly to me, as if I’m there in the room. He takes me into a nearby world I never knew was there and makes me feel at home. He gets my juices flowing.

So, if I forgivably repeat myself, I can try again and see where it goes.

Why do I write?

The impulse to write is a response to the dissatisfaction with the non-existence of that which I wish to create.

That’s a good start. Some people say about all art, about everything creative, “It’s an itch that needs scratching.”

And why do I write the way I do? (Glossing over the fact that I write in many different ways with multiple voices.)

It seems “right.” It feels “right.” Grabbing words from the many that whirl about, wrangling them into shape, revising as necessary, adding, substituting, inventing new ones, until it’s “Yes!” or at least “Close enough.”

I decided long ago that it isn’t all about me, that I’m not the center of the universe, and even if I’m the center of my own universe, I’m not the center of anyone else’s. (Please, let there be other people!)

That perspective, the camera close-up in reverse pulling back, draws out from me in my little room with my little desk and little bed, through the roof of the house, past the neighborhood, the surrounding community shrinking into the distance, the city, state, country, the earth, the solar system, the galaxy, the universe, and every possible and impossible universe and beyond.

Then back down to me, how small I am in the vast scheme of things, and I sit in my chair and look around.

Putting things in perspective, I see again what doesn’t matter, and what does.

We’re born, we live, we die.

Between the beginning and the end is life.

That’s the focus, living, how, how much.

I already know the answer, for me, and have come to terms with it, but since this is a written lecture, I need to expand with details, examples, be convincing.

The be-all and end-all is encapsulated as “love.” That cuts to the chase. I need go no further to find the focus in the word.

Those who already know this agree with me. Those who don’t, need enlightenment. That’s my target audience.

And why should I care?

Because I’m hard-wired for joy. Because the more people who find joy in living, the better the world will be for all of us.

Because life and love and joy come in levels.

Physical love, pleasure, is wonderful. But limiting. If it’s only, “Wham bam thank you ma’am,” we miss out on all the rest. Holding hands, just sitting in the presence of love, the mind beyond the body, the larger self, the shared existence.

We can like hamburgers, but there is so much more to food. We can transcend burgers, include them in the larger menu of life which has more than any one person can sample in a lifetime.

Metaphors and similes break down because the comparison of two things is not the literal limitation of identity, it’s the attempt to go beyond.

Like art. Art takes the triggered senses and involves the mind, the heart, the spirit, the sensibility. It’s the “and.”

Straight-line prose gets us from here to there, subject-verb.

Poetry takes the long way around, the scenic route, adjective-adverb, variations.

It’s not the “rush to judgment,” it’s the “wait a minute.” It’s the “what about?” It’s “and then.”

It’s not the ice chill of “cold cash.” It’s “what money can buy.”

Why eat dirt, when we can eat what grows from dirt?

I could go on and on, and have already, but I spare you.

A slight shift in focus.

Why I loved teaching, and why I didn’t teach college.

I love the way my students found the joy of words. I loved the way we shared that joy, the way they welcomed the future in their human hands.

Education gone wrong aggregates students and keeps them at arm’s length.

I would sit with my students as we both held the text.

I could see every student advance, like a flower opening, like a cookie in the oven done when the timing is complete, like a bird that learns to fly, like youth entering maturity.

And a little more about writing, which is what I was going to write about.

It’s the words.

Words lifted primitive man into language. Language lifted him from existence into life. Life lifted him into possibility, complexity, civilization. From satisfaction to love.

There it is again. I knew we’d get there. I could go on and on, and have, but when you reach the station, get off the train of thought.

Is that enough? For now?

Maybe I won’t give lectures.

I don’t like pretending. I don’t have all the answers. I’m no expert at anything.

I’m just a former English teacher who loved his students, loved literature, loved life, wanted to make the world better.

I still do.

Maybe I’ll teach math and leave myself out of the equation.

Maybe I’ll tell stories.

There’s always something.