If I could show you what community means, you’d see a herd of wildebeest and zebras stretching beyond the horizon. Writing groups, like the Dreamies (Cecily, Jackie, Yuvi), like the Pinewood Table, have looked out for me, protected and fed me on this journey. Especially J Rose and Stevan Allred. And so many dangerous writers. Asante sana.
If you could hear the silence where I’ve written, you’d know Hedgebrook and Soapstone writing retreats, the people who have put up with me in their homes, who have lent me their gorgeous spaces. A tiny house in Cannon Beach gave me the opening to the novel. It was there I sank into Tom Spanbauer’s words and kindness. At the Oregon Extension I heard the wind like a train through the pine. A motel in Maupin along the Deschutes gave me the ending. In Mosier I’ve written and rewritten to the thrum of wind. My siblings have been so patient; my family instilled a love of language, justice, and benign pranks. My Aunt Priscilla was always eager for news of my writing when we kidnapped each other for lunch. Thanks to my fellow dang poet, Aloise. Thanks to Sharon and Mike, Nan and Jan, all those who tended me, cheered me on. Thanks to the ODDies for their faith and patience. Thanks to Coventry Cycle Works who helped me work out characters and plot points by helping me stay on the long rides out there in the quiet.
If I could show you teachers who don’t stay quiet, who witness and act, who know how to hold difference in their hands like water to drink, you’d see the English department at work at Clackamas Community College. You’d see the majority of boarding school teachers. You’d fill with pride and longing, with the reassurance that what happened to that little boy at St. Timothy’s won’t happen today. My colleagues at CCC are the finest teachers I’ve ever known.
And since we’re in Oregon, I can mention rain, and you’d know the green and the rivers and the salmon, and if you knew the renewal of water, you’d know what friends do. A group of friends came to my house month after month and listened to the novel read out loud, and ate great salads and pies, and asked questions and heard what I was trying to say. They came to readings and book signings. My friends are such water.
What is air and fire and earth is Cheryl. Always she says, “Write. Go write.” She has listened and questioned and cheered. She has wept and cajoled, helped me discover the secrets and successes of the characters, missed them when I wasn’t working on the novel. She’s cooked dinners and made postcards and massaged shoulders and made connections I never would have. Without her there wouldn’t be this novel. I can’t imagine what there’d be without her. Thanks to Kendra for naming Taylor.
And it was Hannah who believed in the story in a big way. It was her yell across the continent that told me the book was real, and her generous sharing of experience and faith. And it was Laura who got it all. Her reading of the book puffed the cranes to the right size and shape. Her complete understanding of the intention surpassed my own. Her ideas, her careful comments, her belief took the book and made it fly. And with her came wonder women, like Gigi, Mary, Diane, Annie, and Tracy. Thanks to Bob Troy for his generosity and physics.
If you could put one foot in, push off from the dock, settle into the seats of an eight, you’d know Kippy. This year marks thirty years that she’s been gone, and I’m all the more grateful I knew her for five. There’s really nothing like someone who is a stroke in an eight. To her sister and mother, I am so grateful for their love and friendship. To the crews who have rowed together, who still row together:
let er run …
blades up …
balance …