Endure. Then Celebrate.

A year ago my heart and life were broken into pieces, and I wasn't sure life was worth living. Pema Chodron, my amazing therapist, my friends and family, literature, art and music helped me move to a new level of appreciation of life.

How can it be that now I'm full of joie de vivre? How can it be that I love to dance around alone or with friends in my apartment? How can it be that I'm open to new love? And to travelling, and cooking, and hiking and running, and the life of sensual pleasures? I enjoy being alone, and I enjoy being with my new love. I'm challenged by, and appreciating, my new classes. I can see my students have whole worlds they swirl in, worlds that can teach me as much as I can teach them.

Perhaps it takes coming close to death to love life at a new level?

Of course, there's wisdom of friends that always strikes to the depths. Here's an example. My friend Mike wrote this poem after I told him about my new relationship:

For Kathleen

I hate to say I told you so.
But I will. Because I did.
Of course, you know I'm lying
I love to say I told you so.

Go work your wiles on them
Said I. Snap your fingers and
Strike them blind if you don't
Like them. Fuck them if you do.

While you're whirling around
You'll bump into one that closes
Your eyes and opens your soul.
That's your man. I told you so.

I'm in love with the possibilities of life. I feel that there's barely enough time to do all I want to do. And at the same time, I remind myself to stop and appreciate the moment. The moment, after all, is all we really have. Perhaps this is aging, an accumulation of wisdom. Don't get me wrong. I don't have it all figured out. It's just that I can experience the richness, and ambiguities, and complexities of life in a way that I didn't in my teens, twenties and thirties. In a way that I didn't pre-divorce.

Probably in a related vein, creativity has been infusing my life lately--a strange attractor, to be sure. It's as though my new life energy is a magnet for all kinds of exciting creative acts. Here are some of the things on tap:

Feb. 27 (Saturday), 3 p.m, Fremont Area Writers talk at Mountain Mike's Pizza, 35760 Fremont Blvd, Fremont, CA.

March 11 (Thursday), 4 p.m in the MLK Library, I'm doing a joint reading with Cecilia Woloch. I'll be talking about the function of poetry in my new novel, Complementary Colors.

March 27 (Saturday), 9 a.m. at the Quilts & Textiles Museum in San Jose, I'm giving a 3-hour workshop for SWAN Day:
"Nothing happens, and nothing happens, and then everything happens." -- Fay Weldon
A lot of life feels like we are traveling on a familiar road. Then, suddenly, by choice or not, we face a crossroads: a place where multiple, unfamiliar roads converge. We all have periods in our lives that we can identify in the moment, or in retrospect, as "at the crossroads." These times can be painful, exhilarating, or both. No matter the feelings stirred up, being at the crossroads is a rich time. A time of possibility. Of transformation. In this workshop, we will engage with, capture, illuminate and explore life's transformations through writing. We will also probe intersections among poetry, prose and visual art: creativity's crossroads. In this vein, we will engage with the exhibition of poetry and quilt art of acclaimed artist Joan Schultz. Participants will be provided with opportunities to share their writing and discoveries.

April 7 (Wednesday) at 7 p.m., I'm doing a reading from my new novel, Complementary Colors, at the MLK library at 7 p.m.

April 10 (Saturday) at 1 p.m., I'm doing a poetry reading with a number of other San Jose poets at the San Jose Museum of Art. The reading is based on poetry written by various Bay Area poets in response to one of the museum's exhibits. We were all invited into this project by Nils Peterson, our county's poet laureate.


Life is not to be given up on. Sometimes it's to be endured until we can celebrate it.

Coming Out in All Directions

Over the past year, my life has turned upside down. A year ago, I was in a 15-year relationship with a woman whom I'd legally married. Soon, we endured an excruciating split-up (the divorce is still in process). During the first 30 years of my life, I'd loved only men. I'd been married for five years to a man, had lived with another for a few years, and had dated numerous guys.

Since my split with the woman I loved for many years, I have returned to dating men. Transitioning into being with a woman was a lovely, exciting (and often apprehensive) time--as is transitioning now in a new direction.

I know I'm not the only woman who has ever experienced coming out of lesbian life into bisexual or straight life. In fact, the book Sexual Fluidity: Understanding Women's Love and Desire by Lisa Diamond makes the case that women's sexuality is more fluid, flexible and multi-directional than not. Another book I've read recently is Jan Clausen's Apples & Oranges, her story of leaving an essentially lesbian separatist world. Another excellent book that addresses gender and sexual fluidity is Gender Shock: Exploding the Myths of Male and Female by Phyllis Burke. It's been a while since I read it, but the book strikes me as a good companion to Diamond's book because it is also research-based, and it makes the case that our insistence on fixed identities is rooted in anxieties, not in lived and felt experience.

And then there are my books. In the midst of my transition into loving men, my novel Complementary Colors was released--the irony being that the novel is about a straight woman who falls in love with a lesbian. And yet is this ironic? Maybe it's portentous because, if you look beyond gender, my novel is about the ways we change. The ways we are more fluid than we think. It's about the twists and turns and surprises in life's journeys.

What I find fascinating is that I was interviewed twice over the course of a year by Gary Shapiro for his radio program "From the Bookshelf." The first interview focused on my first novel, For the May Queen. And in that interview, I talk about my lesbian relationship in connection to my writing. In the second interview, about a year later, I talk about my new life and how it resonates with my writing.

Re-listening to these interviews, I'm struck by how confidently I talk about my long-term relationship in the first interview. I didn't know we were on the edge of a cliff. In the second interview, I'm more tentative. I seem tender, more hesitant--perhaps more open to ambiguity?

I don't have any huge revelations here. I just know that as my life path twists and turns, I want to keep my eyes open. Fully, completely open in awe, wonder and curiousity. Maybe this way I can see clearly whatever appears around the next corner.

Fun with Syllabi ... and creative ways to help Haiti

Now is the season for syllabus-crunching. Designing a semester course is dizzying, made more so this academic year due to the weirdness that is furloughs. Because we had to take an almost 10% pay cut this year, we are also required to cut out a certain number of days from our semester. Some of the required days are university-wide furlough days. Others are ones we must designate ourselves, which means students may have some classes that meet on a given day, while others won't. For students taking several classes, the calendar contortions are mind-blowing.

On furlough days we are by contract forbidden from grading papers, emailing students, etc.--in other words, doing any work. It's like University Shabbat. But the bottom line is we are not to compromise any of our teaching and learning objectives. How do you cut out teaching and learning time without compromising anything? It's Kafka-esque.

Still, I'm grateful that my job affords so much creativity. This semester the travel writer Tim Cahill will be our Lurie Endowed Professor. He'll be teaching two classes, and giving a free talk open to the public. So a number of us have decided to focus our courses on travel and "the journey." Here's my run-down:

COURSE #1: English 117, Section 03 (Literature and Film: Travel and Transformative Journeys)
In this class, we will read books and then watch the film adaptations.

1. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (by Frank Baum)
2. The Grapes of Wrath (by John Steinbeck)
3. Up in the Air (by Walter Kirn)
4. Orlando (by Virginia Woolf)
5. The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven (by Sherman Alexie) [Film is Smoke Signals]
6. The Road (by Cormac McCarthy)
7. Sideways (by Rex Pickett)

Course #2: English 130, Section 02 (Fiction Writing)
In addition to workshopping student stories, we will study the writing of fiction writers who will give readings on campus this semester. These readings are free and open to the public.

1. Revenge of the Mooncake Vixen (by Marilyn Chin)
2. War by Candlelight (by Daniel Alarcon)
3. Teach the Free Man (by Peter Malae)
4. Works by the current Steinbeck Fellows

Course #3: English 1A
1. The Best American Travel Writing (Eds. Wilson & Cahill)
2. Online Handbook
3. Reader comprised of works by Chin, Alarcon & Malae, as well as the Steinbeck Fellows

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I am grateful to say that the reviews of Complementary Colors that have been coming out have been wonderful. I don't know why I'm surprised that people seem to love it even more than For the May Queen. Perhaps because Complementary Colors is about a straight woman's journey into loving a woman. I figured that wouldn't be to everyone's taste. But someone wrote on Goodreads that she normally wouldn't read a book on this topic but she was glad she did. That is thrilling to me!

*

We've had a few earthquakes here in the last couple of weeks, but of course they have been nothing compared to what has happened in Haiti. The pictures coming out of that world are apocalyptic. I know a lot of people want to help even though this is a terribly rough time financially for so many. My sister Ann is involved in a creative solution. She has put for auction on eBay one of the purses she knitted, and the proceeds will go to disaster relief in Haiti. Anyone can do this. So you may not have money to give, but perhaps you have items to sell.

Sadistic Holistic

For the composition classes I teach, the students take a common final in which they have an hour to write an essay. By hand. In an exam booklet. What is this, 1959?

Then, a few days later, this mountain of essays needs to be read twice for an ostensibly objective scoring. We do a "holistic" score, meaning we keep all criteria in mind and score each paper on a scale from 1-6: "1" being the student's hangover was so bad she could barely eke out a cramped sentence or two...and "6" being that this student never should have had to take frosh composition in the first place. Many of the faculty are writers, and when we come across a "6" paper we are generally so jealous we give the paper a "5" out of spite.

Grading these papers takes hours. Hours and hours, we sit, slumped over bad handwriting. And I mean bad. These students haven't written anything by hand since they were forced to sign their driver's licenses. That is why I call this experience the Sadistic Holistic Grading Event.

The only saving grace is that sometimes we come across passages that are so funny or bizarre that our fried brains fire up, and we smile. Here are two examples from yesterday's reading:

* In the category "I Guess Everyone Has to Start Somewhere":
As a student, a woman and a good driver with no tickets, I consider myself to be good at all things I do.

* In the category, "Is This Really the Only Example You Could Drum Up?":
People admire those who were dedicated to their cause. Hitler is an excellent example of that. Although I don't agree with his beliefs, he was a very determined man.

*

Next week I give three finals. Two of the three are taking place at my apartment because a) I need to vacuum and will be forced to do so seconds before people arrive, and b) These are creative writing classes, and we're doing a class reading as the final...and I hate to do readings under fluorescent lighting. So instead we'll read our work by mood lighting as we sit on the floor with food and drink.

This has been a hell of a semester. Thank god for my students. They kept me semi-sane because they are full of life and energy. For those not in the loop, I was essentially homeless late spring/summer because of the end of my 15-year relationship...not to mention the financial, legal and emotional crap that has bled over into my life this fall.

It's not been pretty, but then again, so many great things have entered my life--namely an awareness that other people are generally kind, loving and supportive. Without my friends, family and work life, I think I'd be curled up in a ball on the bathroom floor of my former house. Instead, I feel life's goodness and possibilities swimming through my veins.

My main practice right now is to be in the moment as much as possible. The moment is life, breath and balance.

I also like to have a few future points to look forward to, such as Christmas with family, perhaps a short trip in January, and some readings in spring semester:

* On Wednesday Feb. 24, I will be reading from my new novel, Complementary Colors, from 4-5 p.m. at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Library in rooms 225/229.

* On Thursday March 11, the poet Cecilia Woloch (http://ceciliawoloch.com/) and I will be reading in the MLK Library in rooms 225-227 from 4-5 p.m.

ThanksBirthday

On Thanksgiving morning I ran a 10K in the downtown San Jose Turkey Trot , a benefit for Second Harvest Food Bank. It was exhilarating to be out with the community in a positive way, running through my new neighborhood.

I hadn't looked at the route in advance, but soon we were winding our way through my former neighborhood, the one I lived in until my divorce. The mix of emotions was intense. I felt my new self and old self collide. And then, as I continued to run, I felt a calming sense of perhaps what could be called integration. New and old self: both exist in me. Perhaps all that sweat was a baptism of sorts.

I knew there were a lot of people there but was stunned when I read in the news today there were 11,000 registered runners! I'm kind of a cornball (okay, very much so)--and when I read that number my eyes got a little damp. Made me think about how many people I was running with who are going through difficult times of their own, but there we were together, giving thanks for the ability to breathe and sweat and contribute and be together on a beautiful morning.

Thanksgiving was also my 47th birthday. My first validation that day was at 8 a.m. when I saw on my registration packet: "Kate Evans, age 47." They wasted no time upping me a year. I didn't mind. After a hellacious year, seeing my "new age" reminded me that no matter what, time passes and everything changes.

A few days before my birthday I had a little party. This picture of my friend Janelle and me was taken at the party. Janelle and I have lived in the same residence a few times over the past 20 or so year, during times either one of us was going through one of our various life transitions. We are both writers and my most recent novel is dedicated to her because together we developed the idea for it in her living room.

That's one thing I'm grateful for as I age: the ways relationship develop new textures and depths over time.

Holiday Loneliness

Being single is starting to feel a little dicey during the impending holidays. My birthday falls on Thanksgiving this year, which is intensifying the "something missing" feeling. (And to add to the intensity: My father's birthday would have been November 22. He's been gone over two years... Then there was Mom's birthday November 9. She's so diminished...another aspect of loss.)

Loneliness and being alone aren't the same thing, clearly. May Sarton wrote a lot about that. Maybe I need to revisit her.

Sometimes a wave of loneliness crashes over me. Other times I'm able to float in aloneness and feel at peace.

What I'm facing, in part, is change of habit. The habit of waking up to someone in bed every morning--that feeling of a familiar body reliably nestled next to yours. The habit of knowing that on your birthday, you are someone's special person: someone who will give you a card, a little gift, a cake with candles. The habit of knowing you will make Thanksgiving plans together, and that after the turkey feast you will unpack the holiday ornaments to create sparkle in the darkening days.

It's odd how "being alone" isn't true, for the most part. Most of us have friends, family, colleagues, neighbors--people who love and support us. Why do we focus so much on coupling? There's something about the intimacy...and also the conflict...and then the deadening and reawakening...which often means breaking up and starting over, yes?

Speaking of Coupling, I'm a late-comer to the hilarious BBC comedy. Been enjoying it lately, in a kind of masochistic way...




Happy Thanksgiving to you all...and happy navigation of life and love.

Dating in Mid-life: How to Measure Success?

Re-entering the dating world after many years of coupledom is, well, odd. When you first meet someone, you can feel the mental tape measures being whipped out. You're always wondering how you are measuring up. Simultaneously, you are measuring up the other person. It's like a garment workers' convention.

When I was married, meeting new people was less complicated. There was no second-guessing about how that person might, say, perform in bed. Well, maybe there was, but those thoughts rested securely in my mind's Fantasy Island along with da plane and Charo.

Now there's the possibility that such fantasies could develop into a reality. A reality that might involve beautiful things, like my date paying for the dinner--but also, perhaps, some unpleasantness, like halitosis or hangnails.

This is all about the body, it seems. A fantasy body is a very different thing than a reality body. When you've been married for a long time, your spouse's body is as comfortable as an old couch. Such coziness is synoymous with complacency, and before you know it it's been months since you've searched for stray coins behind your spouse's cushions. In the queer world, they call it "lesbian bed death."

But I know from experience that straight people get lesbian bed death too. And I don't mean they cease oral sex. They cease other heterosexual maneuvers as well. The man sits in the basement on his metaphorical sagging couch, yanking himself into Fantasy Island oblivion with the help of online porn--while the woman, post-dinner, scours the sink for the twelfth time that night.

And sometimes in a wacky gender reversal, it's vice-versa.

So my question is this: When I meet a possible date, how do I stop from fast-forwarding my mind? The fast-forward works something like this: I start talking to a man I've met at a literary event--okay, a bar--and full-speed-ahead, my mind writes a one-sentence story:

He has a gorgeous jawline and strong-looking hands that four years from now will erotically finger the remote control while he reclines on our complacent couch, watching his third game of the day while I wander around the house dejected in my hapless new lingerie.

Maybe the key is to put away the measuring tape and pick up a good book, or a good shrink. One that can help me, as they say, be in the moment and not worry about the future. See, that's the thing about being married. The future is all figured out. Your spouse's teeth will one day float in a glass next to the bed, and sex will be a figment of your long-ago imagination.

When you're single, the future is a blank page, waiting to be filled up with stories. Stories like:

Ten years later, she is a bag lady digging through recycle bins downtown, teeth lost because she doesn't own a glass.

Or:

Ten years later, she is still paying off her attorneys from Divorce #1 and Divorce #2 while simultaneously undergoing Divorce #3.

These stories inevitably involve devolution. Why does my mind act as though I am destined to live out life as a Zola novel?

To mix more metaphors, a divorce tears the fabric. That means you are now just a half piece of cloth, like a rag used for cleaning the bathroom. But if the other half has disappeared, what difference does it make? Everyone will just assume that this piece of cloth, sitting alone at the bar, is whole.

Can we cut from whole cloth a pattern of romance and a long, monogamous sex life? Can we sew together something that looks like evolution, not devolution?

I know what I need! I need a tape measure that can divine a happy ending.

*

On a different note:

I just found out that my new novel, Complementary Colors, is ranked #82,768 on Amazon out of 1 million. That's kind of like being a lipstick at Macy's rather than JC Penney's.

And a year after its release, my novel For the May Queen is at #184, 310. Not shabby for a little book about sex, drugs and rock and roll.

Off and running....

Back from a fabulous time in L.A. Did so much, starting with a beautiful drive down Highway 1. Stopped to see the elephant seals snorting and snuffling on the beach. Stopped at a small town and had a conversation at a bar with a Vietnam vet who'd been stationed in Panama. His job was to drive the troops into the rain forest where they played war games in preparation for being shipped to Vietnam.

In L.A., went to a soccer game at the L.A. stadium--the Galaxy and Chivas tied. Saw Beckham play! Carved 15 (not a typo) pumpkins. Dressed as a (slutty) nun for the big Halloween bash at my friend Nancy's house. Went out dancing. Drank too many Cosmos (never again; I'll leave the Cosmos to the Sex & the City girls). Ran from Santa Monica pier to Venice Beach and back again. The sky was ocean-blue, and the ocean sky-blue.

When I got home, found a box at my door. Opened it up and, Voila! My new novel was in my hands.

Taught today, then went to hear Denis Johnson read from his newish noir novel. I enjoyed the reading but was surprised he took no questions afterward. Instead, we headed to the wine and food, receptioning with Denis and cohorts. Ah, the life of the literary jet-set.

Yes, I actually do slip some teaching into the spaces between all this activity. What's gone undone is vacuuming my apartment (dog hair galore) and unpacking my suitcase (gotta get to it because I'm running out of clean underwear).

On tap tomorrow: bill paying, a long run, writing and an evening of pool playing and probably some World Series thrown in.

Bye Bye Bin Laden, Kim Addonizio, Book Giveaway

My friend Scott's hilarious animated film is now available on Netflix. Support him, and independent art, by putting it in your Netflix queue!




Kim Addonizio was on campus this week. I enjoyed the opportunity to meet her in the afternoon with a small group of MFA students and faculty. She talked about writing poetry, memoir and fiction. Given that her fiction and poetry are so edgy, I found it intriguing that she's anxious about the reactions of certain people to her in-progress memoir. It was refreshing to hear. There's always something so vulnerable about sharing our art. In the evening she gave a reading, including some new, unpublished poems. A lot of sex and death. Great stuff.


You can now enter the free Goodreads giveaway for a chance to win a copy of Complementary Colors (and many other books).

The Wizard of Oz on Acid & My Sally Field Moment

Red Room asked their authors to write something about The Wizard of Oz. Here's mine.

(Weird! I found this image here after I'd written the piece. Goes to show you there are no original thoughts, just ones we think are.)

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You like me, you like me! I'm thrilled and honored that Complementary Colors is one of six of Vanilla Heart's titles nominated for the Pushcart. The others are:

Robert Hays, The Life and Death of Lizzie Morris
Chelle Cordero, Final Sin
Victoria Howard, Three Weeks Last Spring
Collin Kelley, Conquering Venus
Vila SpiderHawk, Forest Song: Little Mother

Congrats to all!

Who can turn the world on with her smile?

I went to a play last night with my friend Scott. Made dinner for us in my place, then we walked to the San Jose Rep to see a play, Groundswell, which takes place in South Africa. I agree with a lot of this review. I loved the ambiance of the set and enjoyed some of the acting but thought the opening dragged. I realized when talking to Scott afterward that all that information given during that beginning could probably have been provided along the way, rather than front-loaded. Every art (and life) event teaches. That's what I always tell my students: to read (and in this case view) art and literature as the greatest writing teacher.

The place Scott and I talked post-play was the theater balcony after the show, drinking our complimentary wine and cookies. No, the cookies weren't liquid. Just wondering if you're paying attention.

Living downtown is so fun. When I'm out walking my turkey, I mean dogs, I feel like that girl.


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I've updated my other blog and now have information about both novels, as well as free previews. Thanks, everyone, for all your love and your support of books and small presses.

Amazing week

Yes, it has been.

Saw Mary Roach tonight on campus. She's hilarious, brilliant. Was thrilled to get to hang out with her at a reception afterward, to drink wine and talk about writing, sex and cadavers. No, not sex with cadavers, although one of her books does touch on the subject. If you've never read her, you must.

In an amazing event of serendipity, in my film class we just happened to be watching Milk this week. I hadn't planned it to coincide with National Coming Out Week, but it did. Not only did Obama pledge (ve shall see) to end DOMA and DADT over the weekend, but on the very day we watched the last part of Milk, our Governator signed a bill to create Harvey Milk Day. My classroom was electrified.




What else? At my I'm-Living-A-New-Life Open House, we drank 30 bottles of wine, untold amounts of beer and vodka, and danced on the furniture until the wee hours. I'm so blessed by all the people in my life. I looked around that night and realized it's because of these people I'm alive. And thriving.