Years ago in graduate school I did a project with a guy who became my friend. His name was (and is still) Martin. He was German, so I called him Mah-tin. On the project we did together, he mulled and turned things over in his mind for a long time. He twisted the front of his hair as he thought. I was so impatient. Desperate to get to the answer, I talked and fidgeted and paced and wrote stuff down. I guessed and researched and argued. I wanted to finish the first draft so I could start the second draft so I could make it perfect AND get to sleep, too. Mah-tin sat and twisted his hair between his fingers and thumb.

"Carol," he said. "It's okay to take some time to get it right. Really. It's okay." He smiled and bobbed his head.

Now I want to rush the end of my book. I want to finish the second draft so I can get to the third so I can rewrite it and maybe once more, then start my second book. But I hear Martin in my head.

"Carol. You need to follow the children. Go with them to Bainbridge Island and take the time to see what they find there. Is it a pile of debris? A silver dollar? It's okay to take time. Maybe they smell smoke there and have to find out what still smolders under the grass clippings thrown on top to conceal recent burning."

Sit and watch and write it. Go home with the children. Sit in the dark beside Eleanor's bed and listen to her close her eyes and think. Hear Sam's feet pad down the hallway to her room because he is afraid of something he doesn't understand. His mother is not home. Twist hair and hit the keys and move a pen. The darkness-listening and hallway-padding and island-hopping are probably necessary. Dammit.

Comments

[schubie]

I'll never forget Mah-tin riding his bike, red-fingered in cut-off gloves, to a pah-ty through the bitter cold Chicago winter.