A fond farewell

"The new boat is ready."

He tells me this on Monday, after he tells me that he and mom went back to Pierre last weekend and brought home nine more salmon. I'm happy that they had such a good bite, I can tell he's thrilled to be soaking more fillets in brine, but there's something about his voice, some hitch in it that triggers my red flag.

"Are you sick dad? You sound like you have a cold."

"No, I'm fine. The new boat is in so we'll have to go up and get it this week."

Of course. The new boat.

When I went home a couple of weeks ago, it was to send out old '88 Lund Tyee off to the dump, a final farewell to the boat that followed us the summer we drove to Alaska and lived there, the boat that went to Washington, and Oregon and all over the Midwest with us. I wanted to sleep in that boat one last time, plant my face in the smelly blue carpet under the dash and breath in the essence of lake mud and fish scales and familiarity that I have breathed in for the past two

decades.

I learned to water ski behind that boat when I was little, and after my stroke, when I decided to give it a try again, testing my balance and my strength, that old blue boat pulled me right up. We were supposed to bring home the new boat the same day we dropped off the old one, but it hadn't been delivered to the dealer yet.

It seems sort of silly to recognize an inanimate object as something so special and unifying to a family, but if there's any one thing that sort of brought my parents and I together, it was that boat. I'm sure the new one will do the same thing, but as I was coming home from my run last night, I was thinking about the ways in which this boat will be different. It's got a laminate floor, not a carpet one, so now, when I want to be rocked to sleep in the sunny stillness of the lake, I'll probably stick to the floor, not wake up with the fibrous lines of fuzz I'm used to.

I'm glad I didn't see the boat's end, because it would have been a sad one for me. I don't know what this new boat will be like, exactly, but I know that if it does work in the same way as the old one-- and I don't mean vroom, skidding out across the water-- I already know it's going to have a different relationship with me.

I didn't sleep on that gritty floor again, that one last time like I'd imagined. I wasn't tired, wasn't as bored as I usually am (thank god for the ipod) and I guess I have sort of grown up over the past twenty years (thank god for that too) and maybe don't need to do that anymore while fishing. Maybe I'm able to be present in that moment, regardless of the vehicle, and be in it for what it is. Time spent with my family.

I'm not thinking about it with the necessary depth to apply a good metaphor to the whole thing, but someday, in proper homage to the boat and my dad and the relationship we have out on the water, someday, I think I will. And rest assured, it'll probably happen while on the lake.

Luke Kennard

"Is there a secret to writing?" she asks, poised on the edge of a bar stool. I imagine Veronica bangs, a smart, black dress (they all wear black in London, right?) and chic, thick framed glasses of some sort.

He leans back ever so slightly, tumbler resting just under his cupped palm, left arm resting on his leg, inviting. He pauses to think, but knows the answer immediately without the pause.
"Write every day. Be patient. If possible don't have an Internet connection in the house."

Luke Kennard is a gorgeous twenty-six year old author and poet. This much I know about him. This much I learn from the Q&A with Sarah Kenison running in today's Guardian. But the rest, the rest I make up, suiting my own writer's need to think and imagine. I know next to nothing about this stunning young man (think Johnny Depp and Robert Downey, Jr., but I see that he's a writer, he's a hottie, and best of all, he gives the kind of advice I like to hear. Later, when asked if writing gets easier after time, his answer, "It always feels like starting again - like I have to relearn everything I thought I'd got the hang of," is something that I can completely relate to. After a day spent reading the Columbia Journalism Review, the Believer and assorted other literary magazines and losing myself on the 7th floor of the Harold Washington Library (7 is Lit and Journalism), and thinking about my grad school decision, I'm walking home from the gym, clearing my head and prepping to come how and write some more.

What is it that I seek, as a writer? How do I live this life, as a writer? Everyone affirms my decision and proclamation that that is, indeed who I am, but what does that, exactly, make me? Hearing Kennard's thoughts on the subject are confirmation that at least, if nothing else, in my flounderings and shortcomings, I am, after all, at least writing. Trying. And if like him, I "Sometimes I just sit there screaming into my hands," well, at least I know I'm on the right track.

Just like the old times

"WRITING A BOOK?!? That is so wickedly awesome!!! It doesn't surprise me... you always knew what you wanted in life, never afraid to take a leap or chance...just an amazing girl!! I had known writing was your thing and wondered where you would go with it."

Her words come flying off the screen at me, a rush of excitement and smiles. With them come the memories, oh, the memories. Of cross country runs in the sunrise and notes passed in the hallways and cookies after church. Of McDonald's at midnight and parties with the hottest college boys, some of whom used to confuse us for sisters. There are memories of showing up someplace before her, the wrestler's trailer or the bar's dance floor, only to spend the half hour before her arrival explaining that no, "I'm not Iz, I'm Mars. No, we're not sisters, just friends..."
There are memories of late nights and bar crawls and dreams and hopes and fears. There are memories of fun times and tough phone calls, the ones in which I assured her I wasn't sleeping with her boyfriend, and would tell her, if I was.

And then there is the memory of the conversation where I kept my promise, the one hardest to keep, the one where I had to tell her that I had slept with him. Years later, that one still hurts, when I think about it now. It hurts because he was my best friend. And she was my best friend. And even though the two of them had split up, it hurt us all. And when I lost her, first, and then him, I just chalked it up to the experiences of youth and stupidity. None of us talk anymore-- he's married, she's... maybe bored, and I'm busy again with my own life, doing what feels right in the moment (you'd think I'd learn).

But a couple of weeks ago, when I saw that Iowa was under water, in a big way, I put the past behind me and hoped to hear back from her.

"Iz, this is Mars. Wanna make sure eyou're ok. Txt me back if you can."
Just one line of text, one small message sent out to an old friend that I once loved and wanted all the best for. Hearing that she was ok was as good as getting her email address, as good as getting the reply in my mailbox today. I read through her email, hear her old laughter, sense of sarcasm, feel her personality in each word chosen. But with all of that I read a sense of purpose in those lines, a sense of self that has developed in the years we've been separated. Like me, I'm sure she's still the same short, dark beauty she once was, the crazy girl up for anything and wlling to prove it. And like me, I can tell she's grown up, too, left that place of jealousy and gossip and boredom that we both dreamed of escaping those years ago, running along the cornfields and cracked pavement of our childhoods.