The blog needed to pause.

Do you wish some days for all of life to just. stand. still. A moment? There are things here worth pursuing, worth diving deeper for, and it takes a gulp of refreshment — air, water, wind, or sun — to make it happen. Or, sometimes, those three little words, “The computer’s broken.”

Well, in my case, only the CD/DVD drive quit working. But a fix required a trip for my little machine to the Mac store. It was gone over the 4th weekend, and that was all right. Mostly.

Projects. I started a few. Even finished cleaning out a bathroom cupboard that still held baby teeth, in plastic bags, tucked away for, hm, I’m not sure what reason. It was time to throw things like that away. So I did. Mostly.

The next week, I noticed (using Mom’s computer) that my latest accepted essay, “His Spell,” was up online at The Shine Journal. About Dad and me fishing, it’s breezier than some things I do. It started, actually, with a blog post, here.

Then my computer arrived safely back home. Meanwhile, I was showing people the article I sold to BackHome, now out in their July/August issue (at newsstands mostly everywhere, I think).

It’s been nearly five months since I started my very part time job. As I’d always kind of feared behind my brain, the writing habits I had cultivated for four years dried up nearly completely. Weird, I know, but I need lots and lots of time for regular writing.

Or do I?

Finally getting back to some real focus the past couple days, I am remembering the sensation, sitting down to work (not scrolling the Facebook news page). Work. Writing is that. But it’s what I feel best suited for, when I set the nose pageward or screenward and say, right, here I remain for the allotted time today. I’ve rarely spent long hours doing my creating. In fact, one hour a day’s fine for seat time. As long as it’s regular. As long as I remember to carve out spaces during the rest of the day for deeper consideration of this living fabric, the stuff of my ramblings.

I need to observe. And to consider.

So I’m taking a cue from the katty kit here. And pausing. When necessary.

Sometimes editors edit because writing just hasn’t worked well for them. Not so with Lisa. Her first book, Through the Veil, will soon be released by Canon Press. Its offerings include an essay which was listed under “Notable Essays of 2008″ in Best American Essays 2009, along with two others that have made the Notable lists in volumes of Best American Spiritual Writing. Another of the book’s essays was shortlisted for a Pushcart Prize and received special mention in Pushcart XXXIII.

Below are Lisa’s answers to my questions about her adventures as a literary character and writerly person.

DH: First, tell us the scope of your journeying. Where all have you been? Who are your fellow life voyagers?

LOH: I met my husband-to-be on a study tour in Damascus, Syria, which is also where Through the Veil begins. We married a year and a half later in Oregon and immediately after our honeymoon we moved to Philadelphia, where Todd went to grad school at Westminster Theological Seminary. We returned to the Middle East in 1996 with our one-year-old daughter. Two more daughters were born during our years in Jordan. Since returning to the States, we’ve lived in Delaware/Maryland, Pennsylvania (where our fourth daughter was born), Texas, and finally back to Oregon, where we intend to stay. I’m grateful for the breadth of experience and culture I’ve had over the past twenty years—which gives me plenty to write about—but I’m so glad to be back home in Oregon.

DH:When did you decide you would be a writer?

I wrote my first creative essay in 2004, when we lived in Texas, and I immediately became enchanted with the idea of creating literature from life. At that point I had no idea whether I would write magazine articles or a newspaper column or what. I joined a couple of online critique groups and started to see that my writing tended toward the kind of stuff published in literary journals. It wasn’t until my work started being accepted for publication that I knew writing would be more than a hobby for me.

DH: What led you to the MFA program you’re completing? How did your education enhance your essay writing?

LOH: Having an MFA enables me to teach writing at the college and graduate levels. I entered the program with a firm belief that no one needs an MFA to write well. While I still basically believe that, I’ve found that my writing has grown leaps and bounds in the past two years. For years now I’ve received helpful critique from fellow writers who are about at my same stage in the journey, but the MFA has given me the opportunity to also receive critique and direction from established writers and editors. Having these friendships is a benefit I hadn’t anticipated when I started the program .

The hurdle for me was how to make graduate school fit into my existing life. I’m in my forties and married, with four school-age children. At the time I applied for MFA programs I was also the primary caregiver for my elderly mother-in-law, who lived with us. The low-residency programs—and the Rainier Writing Workshop in particular—are designed for those who cannot relocate to a graduate school community for two or three years.

The Rainier Writing Workshop (RWW) was my first choice for several reasons. First of all, I recognized nearly every name on the nonfiction faculty listing, writers like Brenda Miller, Robin Hemley , Lia Purpura, and others. RWW’s program takes three years rather than two (with the three-year program costing about the same as a two-year program elsewhere), so MFA candidates are writing an estimated 15 hours per week rather than the 20-25 estimated for a two-year program. RWW also holds only one on-campus residency per year—in August—whereas nearly every other program has two residencies per year.

DH: You’ve stated that writing fiction is not for you. What is most appealing for you about creative nonfiction?

LOH: I am completely enchanted with the process of seeing life through a literary lens and uncovering the metaphors and portents and deep connective threads running through the stories that make up my life. This is a matter of aptitude as well as preference. I can see story structure in life, in thought, in rambling reflection, in imagery, and I can’t imagine ever tiring of this adventure—both the living and the writing. It’s magic to me, making life into literature, complete with the limitations granted by believability, truthfulness, and honoring those I write about.

DH: Which came first, your essays or the idea for your book?

LOH: I had written only a handful of essays when I began to mine my memories of living in Damascus. The memory of a slightly alarming interaction with some Bedouin women in Damascus combined with some research about the Crusades and became my first Middle East essay, completed in December, 2005. I realized right away that this concept could become my first book. I pulled out my journals and research notes from Damascus, and for more than two years I just kept writing essays about living in Syria and Jordan, submitting finished work to literary journals all along the way. In the “Acknowledgements” page for Through the Veil I say that I learned to write by writing this book.

DH: Lately you’ve been teaching and editing. How do those occupations fit with your writing career?

LOH: It’s hard for me to say which I love more—writing my own essays or coaching other writers. I’m glad I don’t have to choose between the two. Both fit together in this writing life.

DH: How would someone interested in receiving one of your coaching sessions go about contacting you?

LOH: I give a brief description of my critique and editing service on my website. To talk more about writing and editing or about a specific project, interested readers should email me. Although I have worked with local clients, most of my coaching takes place via email and telephone calls.

DH: What plans are in the works for Through the Veil’s unveiling?

LOH: I only have two definite events scheduled—a book release in the Dallas, Texas, area in early July and a private book launch with friends here in my hometown in mid-July. I have felt bizarrely shy about promoting my book, and I’ve decided that’s okay. If Through the Veil is worthwhile, readers will recommend the book to their friends and the news will spread.

My book has been picked up by several book clubs for next fall, and at least one of these groups has invited me to come speak to them. I’m hoping for more invitations to meet with writers and readers to talk culture and craft.

DH: Thank you, Lisa, for taking time to visit my blog. I’m excited to read your finished book and to imagine the richness of your prose giving more readers windows into worlds unknown. I’ve learned much from you about the art and craft of writing, and I’m looking forward to seeing others benefit from all you have to offer.

**You can now find this same interview over at Relief Journal.**

If you’ve known me a while, you’ll be familiar, perhaps, with my sometimes grittier style. If you think of me as a bit sheltered, or innocent, you may be surprised to learn more of my story. This piece of the tale came out fairly true to the way things felt back then. Back when an invitation to go skydiving appealed in a got-nothing-to-lose way.

Maybe it was essential to see how stupid I could be, back when I was young. Old and stupid I’ve been, too, but more accepting of truth, perhaps. More thankful than before, certainly, for the story and the dancing.

I started writing posts on a Blogger blog four years ago.

This morning, my WordPress dashboard tells me this is my 200th post.

Since I began the work of educating myself to write more often and better, I have found some publishment in print and online. I’ve received much encouragement from friends, especially during bouts of steady rejection. I have become just techy enough to obsess over blog and website details.

Mostly, though, I’ve had fun.

Now I feel on the brink of new steps in this writing journey. (When haven’t I?)

Liking it here.

We sat in the dentist’s waiting room. Actually, it was an endodontist’s waiting room. The three of us were at ease, Mom and Dad having nearly made it through a week filled with medical appointments while maintaining their senses of humor and grace.

Mom made sure the receptionist understood that though I was interviewing Dad, we could release him the moment the endodontist required him. She tends to let people know I’m a writer any way she can.

I said to Dad, “You’re right. This makes it sound like you called Richard a day later, when really it might have been months. I’ve written it this way to make things flow better, but I can change it.”

“It’s fine,” he said, “since I don’t even remember how soon I made the call.”

“That reminds me,” Mom said, “we watched an interview of the real people from The Blind Side.”

“Yeah, the way it really happened, the young guy loved football all his life.” Dad and Mom went on discussing the based-on-a-true-story film we all saw recently, comparing their new knowledge with Hollywood’s version. I agreed with them that this time the movie-makers seemed to have gotten the important things right. Doesn’t always happen, of course.

I asked a question or two more before the endodontic assistant called Dad back. A little while later, the assistant ushered Mom and me into the small space where Dad’s exam was taking place. “I want you and Deanna here, Carol,” Dad said. To the endodontist he went on, “I’ll never remember everything you tell me, and they’ll grill me with a thousand questions.” The doctor said he had no problem with our presence.

I learned more than I hope I’ll ever need to know about root canals, specifically the history of this procedure since 1965, when Dad first underwent one in Oklahoma. Forty-five years later, it needs to be redone. After hearing the dental specialist’s evaluation, Mom and I felt we could trust him with Dad’s mouth.

I guess this sort of faith is essential to maintaining connected lives. These explanations of “how it happened” or “how it will happen” are, I suppose, unavoidably cobbled together to some extent. Fictionalized, if only slightly. Smooth communication from brain to mouth to a hearer’s mind requires editing. Rather amazingly, we can take in information and construct our individual views, and in most cases what’s lost in translation doesn’t cause a problem. The nature of truth is it’s malleable to a degree.

Yet something inside me tends to listen and watch for that off bit. You know it, or your instincts alert you, or something. When the tone of story becomes too convenient. I made sure to ask the endodontist if what he meant about the crown on Dad’s tooth was it might break when he redoes the root canal, no matter how secure he thinks it looks today. The doctor admitted he won’t know for sure about the crown until he does the procedure.

If someone asks me sometime — assuming my essay about Dad and Richard Brautigan gets published — whether or not Dad really phoned Richard as immediately as my story makes it sound, I’ll need to tell them I don’t know, don’t even think so. But I’m basing the story on truth, on what happened in a broad sense, and there’s enough factual meaning in there to be worth chewing on.

You trust me, right?

I’m going to share a page from a little diary. Written in pencil, the entry is dated Saturday, August 3, 1974.

On Monday evening some friends from Illinois, the Hershisers, came to visit. There are four in their family; the parents, LeRoy and Gwen, and the kids Tim, 18 and Stephanie, 15. We had a great time with them on Tuesday, when we went to Pt. Defiance park for the day. Stephanie and Tim are funny and neat. Tim is great in electronics and knows all about electrical stuff. He fixed about everything that needed repairing around here, from our TV to our casset tape recorder. I’m afraid I sort of like him a little too much but he has a girlfriend back in Sterling, Illinois and I won’t be seeing him for probably many years, so I think I’ll get over him.

I was 14. A later entry that summer found me meeting a boy named Mike at a campground, talking with him late into the night (with my brother there. “Unfortunately,” I said), and then searching in vain for Mike the next day. Ah, those years. Amazing, still, to me, is how one piece of my continuing adolescent adventures returned in a meaningful way a few years later.

Tim came back to Tacoma. We started dating (his old girlfriend a bittersweet memory) when I was 17, my senior year.

I recall his sister saying, sometime after we married, that ours had been a fairy tale love story. Lately I jotted something related into my Moleskine writing notebook:

I’ve been a main character in a fractured fairy tale. I’ve also been the wife in a stable, committed relationship. Both my stories have played out with the same man.

Here’s the strange part: in both cases we have lived a broken love.

Although we find ourselves on a healing journey, the two of us remain morally tattered beings. And yet we have seen ourselves striving for better, wanting goodness.

If only God would give it to us.

The Bible’s word “depraved” brings up questions for me. Why, for one thing, doesn’t God give us moral “pravity”? Make us “praved”?

Is depravity like being declawed? Defenestrated?

Why don’t we get secondary pravity, like some say we get secondary virginity?

How can the command, “Go and sin no more” fit, if I’m to be ever depraved while walking this planet, while going?

I jotted these thoughts along with glimpses of answers I’ve been forming over the decades since I was that 14-year-old girl. Since that first glimmer of my fractured fairy tale. I had some fun with possibilities. Maybe I’m discovering the channel I can write in, on, betwixt.

Yesterday I received a gift in the mail from Fresca. Thanks, bloggy buddy! It’s a book of quotes titled A Writer’s Commonplace Book (British, eh, what?).

Leafing through pages this morning, I was reading aloud to Tim. Here’s something we both found interesting, by Margaret Mead:

Three different types of marriage. One for young people who just want to live together and have sex…another for couples who want to raise children. A third is for older people who want companionship.

Mead was married three times, and her sexual orientation apparently “evolved” later in life. Her fractured fairy tales obviously look different than my own, hetero-oriented, stormy story. But I like these ideas to explore, especially when thinking about writing for people, in marriage type 1, 2, or 3 (maybe with the same person), living along that vast and varied avenue of our reality which is characterized by believing in God and Jesus.

Plenty of us are fractured. How many sigh and groan, thinking most of the others they see are living happily ever after?

And what, pray tell, old chap, might it be like to climb back in the window, fenestrated, wearing a sprig of pravity in one’s hair?

By Emily Smucker

Spring was in the air, but you couldn’t tell by looking at my closet. I had plenty of sweaters and hoodies and knee socks, but not a single loose-fitting short-sleeved t-shirt. After all, it wasn’t t-shirt weather when I packed my bags in October to take a relatively short visit to Oregon to see my family. But I ended up going to a Bible Institute for six weeks first, and then when I finally got to Oregon I felt sick, all my plans were disrupted, and I ended up going to Virginia to live with my aunt.

That’s how I ended up t-shirt-less in April.

My life is full of confusing tales like this. I’m constantly shifting gears and moving from place to place, never quite sure where I’ll be in six months. Life is unpredictable, to say the least.

Little known fact: This is what I’ve always wanted.

For years I had one of the most predictable lives imaginable. The same tiny Mennonite church, the same tiny Mennonite church school, and the same friends, that is, people who went to my church and my school. But I always hoped and dreamed that someday I would have an exciting, unpredictable life, meeting new people and doing interesting things.

Then I got sick.

Being sick was boring and extremely predictable. This is what I knew:

1. I was sick.
2. I had West Nile Fever.
3. I was not getting better any time soon.
4. There was nothing I could do about it.

Could there possibly be any more to the story? Oh how I hoped there was! I longed to be told that I not only had West Nile Fever, but that I was also allergic to Oregon. Thus, I would have to move, and I could get better and meet new people and have a glorious complicated life.

In the end, that’s exactly what happened.

A blood test showed that I was allergic to a mold which grew in western Oregon. So I moved to eastern Oregon temporarily, to see if the dryer climate would help me.

It did. That was the start of my adventures. I didn’t stay in eastern Oregon, though. I moved. Then I moved again. Then I moved again and again and again. Each time it was for a different reason. Here there was no community for me to interact with. There the house was so old it made me feel sick again. Oh, and I couldn’t stay in that other place because I had no job, nothing to do, so I was bored all day.

Finding a place to live has been complicated. Figuring out exactly what makes me sick has been complicated. But I have it now. The unpredictable complicated life I’ve always wanted.

An unpredictable life, it turns out, has its pros and cons.

Pro: An unpredictable life is exciting.

Con: And unpredictable life is confusing. “What exactly makes you sick?” “Where are you from?” “Are you in College?” Everyday questions like those take bucket loads of back-story and explaining. I try to condense it, but in the end, the person I’m talking to often doesn’t get it anyway.

Ever frustrating.

Pro: Despite the complicated answers to basic small-talk questions, I have met a lot of interesting new people. This is good news indeed, for the more people I meet, the better characters I can write.

Con: I keep making new friends, only to have to leave them again.

Pro: As I move around, experiencing this and that, I find greater and greater potential as an author. Before, the only thing I felt I could write about was a Mennonite girl growing up in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. Now, I have piles of tiny experiences and settings which I could expand into stories, perhaps even books.

Con: The constant moving, and all the uncertainty, have really taken their toll on me.

Sometimes settling down is nice. You can get a job, support yourself, and be independent. You can stop, breathe, and figure out where you want to go in life. You can make friends, and keep them for a very long time.

Don’t you think it’s inevitable that, optimist though I am, I would struggle with depression from all the unpredictableness?

Fact: Being depressed is worse than being sick.

Another Fact: Depression is, thank God, much easier to treat and get rid of than sickness. At least in my case.

I really don’t know anyone else who leads a life as unpredictable as mine. Am I to be pitied for it? Envied, perhaps? There are pros, and there are cons. Excitement and pain. Joy and grief.

But you know, I’m an optimist. So I think I’ll focus on the good bits.

Congratulations to annji for winning my book giveaway! Emily is the story of facing illness and unpredictability during the year that was supposed to be Emily’s most exciting. As you’ve just read, she has been learning to improvise and look for silver linings, relying on family, friends, faith, and humor. Emily blogs here. Her publisher, HCI, has a page about her book here, which includes a video featuring Emily.

Thanks all of you who entered the contest. Tim drew the winning name from a hat, just before a glass candle holder broke and we enjoyed our morning excitement cleaning up melted wax while eating peanut butter. Happy, unpredictable Monday!

“I think it comes out of just loving, really loving, what you’re doing. It doesn’t feel like discipline. It just feels like getting to do the things you want to do most.”

Emily’s Last Day

On the trip to Emily’s house, Neil rode beside his brother Ben, who drove. Passing Harrisburg, Neil reached into his ear and pulled out what looked like a small wad of Playdough. He tapped the minuscule antenna. “I got hearing aids.”

“Good for you, Neil. About time.”

Neil grinned. “When you and I go out to the lake in April, I’ll notice the birds. If a trout splashes, I’ll hear it.”

“I’ll have to get a better reel,” Ben said.

Neil settled comfortably into his seat, glad to talk fishing. He decided if Emily had been with them she’d likely have commented, “Enjoy the day, boys. No long faces.”

At last they parked in front of her house. Their other sisters and their nieces hugged them at the door. Beyond everyone, Emily lay in a hospital bed, her eyes closed. She lay on her back, the family nose aimed at the ceiling. The cancer had ravaged her frame, and the blankets tucked to her chin couldn’t soften her emaciated form.

“Emily,” Neil said. “You snore like I do.”

She closed her mouth.

“Hey, she heard me!”

The women nodded. “She’s aware of us.”

They went to the kitchen for food. There were orange wedges, triangle sandwiches, and paper plates. Then they sat in the living room, balancing the plates on their laps, surrounded by Emily’s knick-knacks and paintings. The orange tasted sour.

Emily had never married. She had worked all her life, and her coworkers stopped by to pay respects. With his new hearing aids, Neil listened to soft conversations humming. Finally people began to drift away in the late afternoon. His sisters, who’d been caring for Emily for weeks, looked weary. A hospice nurse would be in later to stay the night.

Neil lingered at Emily’s bedside, wishing she’d open her eyes.

“Let’s sing a hymn,” Ben said. The family grasped hands and almost encircled the bed. Neil didn’t know all the words to Amazing Grace, but he listened intently to the haunting song. In the silence afterward, he bent to hug Emily’s wasted shoulders.

“I’ll never forget,” he whispered, “how you saved me from Billy Hanson when he had me down that day in second grade.”

Neil kissed Emily’s cheek and her face twitched. “I couldn’t beat anyone,” he said. “So you did. I saw his bloody nose. Good punch.”

Emily’s breathing shifted slightly. He knew she’d heard him.

“Thanks, Sis. I love you.” Neil kissed his sister again and let go of her hand.

A few minutes later, the brothers said their goodbyes and stepped into the evening air, where Neil stood on the porch for a moment, listening. He could hear sparrows singing hymns in the trees.