The Importance of Being From Oshkosh

Time is just so precious; it runs away from me like an Olympic sprinter. Today I whiskerburned my face, shaving dry during a construction delay on Highway 213. Never try that. It's a bad idea on many levels.

I write in the late evening after the household has gone to bed. I don't want to be underfoot. I take a nap in the evening and sleep until 10 or so, and spend the hours of delicious quiet tip tap tapping my way into fame and fortune or a couple of new discoveries. I keep paper with me all day and I am forever scrawling notes, trying to remember what was said, trying to remember exactly how they phrased it. I keep the scraps and loose pages in a green reusable shopping bag, hoping they compost into coherence. Time moves much faster than my feeble brain. I can't take things in fast enough. I will have to get better. But I'm getting older and I don't remember as well. The literary allusions I was fond of in my 20s and 30s have all slipped out of my brain.

I read over everything I've written a hundred times a night, trying to get the voice of it right and stay consistent, trying to catch as many of the embarassing little errors and typos as I can.

When you start to write a little better a new fear emerges, the fear of doing work that isn't quite as good as the best stuff you did yesterday. It's like fitness: you have to push through the plateaus. It helps to be able to use another part of the blog to just get typing and writing. My goal is to write 200,000 words and then pare them down to 60,000, the part that matters, the part that meant something and could matter to the world. The blog will be big and sloppy and will get edited right before your eyes--be sure to hit the refresh button often or you will know what I clod I can be. My silliest and most frequent error is just leaving out one silly, vital little word, an it or an an without which a whole paragraph falls apart. It's an amazing experience to sit in this chair. You really ought to try it.

It's been a challenge personally. I've been late to work every day this week. I asked Amie if I could switch to a part-time schedule, maybe come in at 9:30 or 10 or 11 when the breaks begin and work til 5, so I could avoid being a constant disappointment to them, offer my best work for the time I'm there and have more time to write. She listened in her attentive way and said she'd talk to Theresa; they'd consider it. "I don't want to lose you," she said, "But I'm not sure if we have any part-time schedules available right now." I understand their perspective. They have to produce numbers and get results from the employees on the line. I find right now in my work my quality is tremendous, I'm able to connect with more people than ever and resolve their issues beautifully most times, but my speed stinks. I'm working tired and that drops your agility and reflexes; typing out account notes is far slower than it should be. But I know I've touched some people, turned around their impression of the company. The problem is it's probably 60 a day instead of 90, and the call center has 2200 calls that have to be answered. They haven't said anything but I'm afraid they will any day. I pop my head into Amie's office a couple of times a day to try and check in and stay connected. She really is a wonderful boss, with a big, endearing personality and humor. She doesn't panic. She stays focused on solutions and doesn't look for scapegoats. A very refreshing and genuine person. She married her high school sweetheart, pregnant at her high school graduation, and now she has two teenaged girls, a younger one who does everything right and an older one who is beautiful and smart but (Amie says) too much like her mother was as a girl, boy crazy and full of sass. She obviously loves them both very much, and adores her husband, who is a startlingly handsome man, quiet and tall and athletic. My last two accuracy audits were excellent, I got 11 of 11 on the service machine scores, but I fear the next one: we've been impossibly busy and I haven't had any time to check the end of day reports we get. I'm sorry if this is boring. I just need the practice.

Part of the problem is that when you make a decision like this and take action on it it's a very radical thing, and it challenges people's view of you so drastically their reactions are all over the map. It's almost impossible for ordinary people to think of another ordinary person as a writer, to give their tacit permission to a writer's curious and singular habits, constantly taking notes and thinking aloud from yesterday's work and recording what is being said around them. Even talking about yourself as a writer is alarming to people. Most of us think of writing as a craft done by geniuses; in reality it's the work of persistent fools. And I am the most persistent fool I know.

As I'm typing out people's requests and writing the tickets for them we get to talking, the business purpose of which is to be cordial and fill the dead air. Occasionally I make discoveries or connections, a note of humanity or humor. Early this morning I met a man named John Livingstone who needed an account note made, and while I was working on his request he mentioned he lived on his pension from the Army, and I thanked him for his service to the country. I often say that when I meet soldiers or soldiers' wives. My own son-in-law Thomas is an explosives expert for the U.S. Army, a soft-spoken and engaging young man from a small town in Montana. He dismantles bombs for a living, identifies and diffuses land mines and IEDs, participates in security and training exercises all over the country. "I have the best job in the Army. My job is not to kill people; it's to keep people from being killed." When the Pope came to Washington D.C. it was his job to sweep the hotel room. The last time I drove up to Selah he and I sat out on the deck under the stars and smoked cigars to celebrate the birth of Ethan Joseph, my new grandson, a beautiful baby boy. That's redundant: grandson is synonymous with beautiful baby boy. Ethan Joseph is a chunker and weighed 9 lbs. at birth. He has a sweet disposition but no chin. I'm going up to Selah this weekend; I hope Thomas is in town and not out on a detail. I hope I haven't said anything he has to have me killed for.

Dale Newton wrote:

Steff--

I need a picture of Ethan Joseph and Kourtney for the blog. They will soon be world famous with international modeling contracts. If you could email me one of them together it would be a huge favor. Please have Thomas read over what I wrote today and make sure I didn't say anything that was classified. I can pull it right away if I do. When I mention him in the future I'll need to have the same standing request--I know the parameters are pretty strict and his job is so interesting, and my job is to repeat every interesting thing people say.

Can I come up or are you guys busy?

Dad

As I typed his account notes I learned Mr. Livingstone served in WW II and Korea and Vietnam, enlisted as a private and retired as a Captain. I didn't know you could do that. He'd served under Patton in Belgium, and in his life since the Army had written two books. The chills were starting. His first one was The Importance of Being From Oshkosh, how being from a small town had shaped his life. More chills. When you are in a creative state God has a way of putting people and experiences in your way that lead you to the right place. I could tell meeting him over the phone was another amazing instrument of God's unfailing and limitless grace. (This subject will come up a lot here; if it offends you you may want to get another blog or start one of your own, but I encourage you to stick around.)

I talked with him for a minute while I finished my note, and I didn't want to take any more of his time or waste the company's. So I broke about 15 company rules and asked if I could call him some time when I was off duty, maybe meet him for a bite to eat or a cup of coffee. He eagerly and enthusiastically agreed, and I asked him if I could use the phone number from his account. It isn't an action I'd repeat again; it was risky to do it once. The story is set in motion now and it won't be necessary.

After work I called Marie and told her about him. She agreed to have dinner with Mr. Livingstone and his wife, on Monday night at Wu's Open Kitchen off Scholls Ferry Road, their favorite restaurant. He's bringing along a copy of his second book, Carmel By Itself, A Pictorial History of a Unique Community. The chills are starting again. The hound of heaven has found his prey.

I made another call to Stan, Abby's grandpa, and he and I and his wife Gail are getting together next week. Stan was an Army sergeant, an eye doctor, who got some of his training at Walter Reed. Another remarkable man and a giant of faith, someone I admire more than anyone I ever met, except my mother.

I called Doug and we agreed to get together next Thursday. He gave me the challenge of deciding what we do.

The story is writing itself and I'm just taking dictation. I will have to get smarter to get it all down. Please help me, God. Your world has more beauty and humanity and courage in it than I could ever depict. I just want to get a little piece of it right.