Open Road (Abrir el camino)

Somewhere, at this hour, a peppercorn-colored Mini is speeding down a highway in southern California or Arizona. Music is blasting from the CD player, and the woman behind the wheel is singing along. Every now and again, she lights up a cigarette. Or, she reaches into the bag on the seat next to her to grab some dried mango, baby carrots, grapes, tangerines, or take a slug from a big bottle of water.

Her Mini is also jammed with all of the possessions she's deemed necessary for her trek cross-country. A bag full of pretty sundresses and tank tops we bought in New York four weeks ago for the southern heat she'll soon be encountering; a box of electronics, including cords and routers for her computer; an inflatable mattress, a lantern, a fan.

There's also a notebook filled with the names and numbers of contacts to help her work with the victims of last summer's monstrous storms -- Katrina and Rita. She's enroute to the Gulf Coast, returning to the site that has drawn her repeatedly since those storms devastated the region eight months ago.

Tonight, she'll stop in Phoenix and see an old college friend. By early next week, she'll pull into the parking lot of the old Methodist Church on Pass Road in Biloxi, and unload her gear. She'll locate a tent and set up her own personal headquarters, and resume her work, helping that ruined community's least powerful members rebuild their lives.

In the process, now with full self-awareness, she will also be seeking some clues about her own future. Her first two visits last fall, one for ten days, the next for three months, were complicated by the confusion of trying to maintain her life here in San Francisco, while the situation in Biloxi was what really triggered her deeper passions.

Because, make no mistake, this is a deeply political woman.

Here, in the Bay Area, we have a community of wealth and privilege, the best food in the world, a nice climate (except for this miserable winter, now apparently past), and the greatest collection of progressives anywhere in America. We probably also have more coffee shops, bars, parks, and corner groceries than any other U.S. city.

But we don't have happiness. And we don't have physical security. In fact, we are living on borrowed time here in lovely San Francisco. One of these days or nights, the ground under us is going to start to shake and it will not stop shaking for a long, long time. By the time it is done, the real terror will begin. Those of us not dead under collapsed buildings, will thank whatever god we may believe in (or not) and try to figure out how to find enough water, light, heat and food to survive the next few days, until relief supplies arrive. Many of us will die during that interim.

It's hard to say how awful our disaster will be, compared to what hit the Gulf Coast last summer. There, in the aftermath, as those who have read my previous posts know, the landscape was littered with the pieces of lives lost and lives saved, and also with the inescapable detritis of a culture based on racism, classism, and exploitation.

How can I say these things? Please drive down to Mississippi for your summer vacation this year and visit the casinos. Then, drive around East Biloxi, Waveland, or Bay St. Louis; or the Ninth Ward of New Orleans. Then, let's talk. America in 2006 remains a racist, classist society where if you are poor you are screwed, period.

For now, the forgotten coast relies on those, like the special woman tonight in her peppercorn Mini, who sense that whoever we are as Americans, we cannot look ourselves in the mirror and continue to lead comfortable lives while a corner of our country lies in complete ruin.

As she flies down the highway, down toward those who need her more than we do here, at least for now, I hope she knows she is my hero.

***
(en espanol)

En alguna parte, en esta hora, grano de pimienta-coloreado mini está apresurando abajo de una carretera en California o el Arizona meridional. La música está arruinando del lector de cd, y la mujer detrás de la rueda está cantando adelante. Cada ocasionalmente, ella enciende para arriba un cigarrillo. O, ella alcanza en el bolso en el asiento al lado de ella para asir un poco de mango secado, zanahorias del bebé, uvas, mandarinas, o toma un lingote de una botella grande de agua.

Su mini también se atora con todas las posesiones que ella ha juzgado necesaria para ella emigra a campo través. Un bolso por completo de sundresses y de tapas bonitos del tanque que compramos en Nueva York hace cuatro semanas para el calor meridional ella pronto encontrará; una caja de electrónica, incluyendo las cuerdas y las rebajadoras para su computadora; un colchón inflable, una linterna, un ventilador.

Hay también un cuaderno llenado de los nombres y de los números de contactos para ayudar a su trabajo con las víctimas de las tormentas monstruosas del verano pasado -- Katrina y Rita. Ella es enroute a la costa del golfo, volviendo al sitio que la ha dibujado en varias ocasiones desde que esas tormentas devastaron la región hace ocho meses.

Esta noche, ella parará en Phoenix y verá a viejo amigo de la universidad. Por la semana próxima temprana, ella tirará en la porción del estacionamiento de la vieja iglesia Methodist en el camino del paso en Biloxi, y descarga su engranaje. Ella establecerá una tienda e instalará sus propias jefaturas personales, y reasume su trabajo, ayudando que menos miembros de gran alcance de la comunidad arruinada reconstruyen sus vidas.

En el proceso, ahora con timidez completa, ella también buscará algunas pistas sobre su propio futuro. Sus primeras dos visitas el otoño pasado, una por diez días, el siguiente por tres meses, fueron complicadas por la confusión de intentar mantener su vida aquí en San Francisco, mientras que la situación en Biloxi era lo que realmente accionada sus pasiones más profundas.

Porque, no incurrir en ninguna equivocación, esto es una mujer profundamente política.

Aquí, en el área de la bahía, tenemos una comunidad de la abundancia y del privilegio, el mejor alimento en el mundo, un clima agradable (a excepción de este invierno desgraciado, ahora al parecer más allá), y la colección más grande de progresistas dondequiera en América. Probablemente también tenemos más tiendas de café, barras, parques, y tienda de comestibles de la esquina que cualquier otra ciudad de los E.E.U.U.

Pero no tenemos felicidad. Y no tenemos seguridad física. De hecho, estamos viviendo en tiempo prestado aquí en San Francisco encantador. Uno de actualmente o las noches, la tierra debajo de nosotros va a comenzar a sacudarir y no parará el sacudarir para un largo, de largo plazo. Para el momento en que se haga, el terror verdadero comenzará. Los de nosotros no absolutamente debajo de edificios derrumbados, agradecerán cualquier dios podemos creer adentro (o no) e intentar para calcular hacia fuera cómo encontrar bastante agua, luz, calor y alimento para sobrevivir los días próximos, hasta que llegan las fuentes de la relevación. Muchos de nosotros morirán durante ese interino.

Es duro decir cómo es tremendo será nuestro desastre, comparado a qué golpeó la costa del golfo el verano pasado. , En las consecuencias, como los que han leído mis postes anteriores saben, el paisaje fue dejado en desorden con los pedazos de vidas perdidas y vidas ahorradas, y también con el detritis ineludible de una cultura basó en racismo, classism, y la explotación.

¿Cómo puedo decir estas cosas? Conducir por favor abajo a Mississippi para tus vacaciones del verano este año y visitar los casinos. Entonces, impulsión alrededor de Biloxi, de Waveland, o de la bahía del este St. Louis; o la novena sala de New Orleans. Entonces, hablemos. América en 2006 sigue siendo un racista, sociedad donde si eres pobre te atornillan, período del classist.

Para ahora, la costa olvidada confía en las, como la mujer especial esta noche en su grano de pimienta mini, que detectan que quienquiera nosotros está como americanos, nosotros no puede mirarse en el espejo y continuar conduciendo vidas cómodas mientras que una esquina de nuestro país miente en ruina completa.

Mientras que ella vuela abajo de la carretera, abajo hacia los que necesiten sus más que nosotros aquí, por lo menos para ahora, yo esperamos ella sepa que ella es mi héroe.

Endings

Lots of writers have asked me over the years about the best way to write endings, or kickers, to their stories. This is an especially difficult question to answer when you're telling a sad or difficult story. How can you leave your readers with something other than an utter sense of hopelessness?

And, given the seriousness of, say, global environmental threats, should you even try to?

My answer is yes.

As to the how, whenever possible I'd recommend finding a life-affirming aspect to whatever story you are telling, and close with that. It takes some additional reporting and some hard thinking to locate the set of facts or perspectives that may allow readers to absorb all of the bad or sad news and still feel empowered to go on, better informed about dangers, but not necessarily bereft of hope.

Endings are as natural as beginnings. Earlier in this blog, I posted about transitions. At the very end of my own stories, therefore, I like to find something to leave readers with that can encourage them to avoid getting depressed by my story and instead find even a small piece of inspiration going forward.

It is exactly what is meant by the concept of loving somebody so much that you can actually, in the end, let them go, when that's the right thing to do. It hurts, and the pain is beyond intense. But is also is the kind of ending that implies new beginnings -- for both of you. And an ending coated with love really isn't an ending per se, but a transition to a future neither of you can yet envision. When that new stage finally arrives, you'll both feel better for the way you let each other go--not by isolating, withdrawing, and denying, but by embracing, supporting and loving.

At least that's how I see it. :)

Transitions

Every writer struggles with them.

In real life, they can be even harder. That first day of pre-school or kindergarten. Graduations. Job changes. Divorces and breakups. Moves across the country. Getting older. Losing loved ones. Getting married. Having babies. Making new friends. Changing careers.

There are so many transitional moments in life that sometimes it seems all like One Big Transition. I'm not sure there is much wisdom from the world of writing and editing regarding transitions that ports very well over to real life.

Except maybe for this: Try to never end a sentence, paragraph, or section without identifying your opening to the next sentence, paragraph, or section. Continuity. Smoothness. Consistency.

Change is inevitable. Doing it elegantly is another thing.