On the Value of Depression

One evening, after our workshop let out, four of us from my MFA fiction cohort crammed into a car to drive through the Caldecott tunnel. We were discussing class, probably discussing our classmates and their work--I don't remember the specifics. What I do remember, however, is one of us saying that a particular classmate was neurotic. "Of course he is," someone else said, indignant. "We all are. We're writers."

I would be lying if I said that there weren't times when I've wondered whether being mentally healthy is a liability in my chosen path, that maybe I've gotten myself to a point where I'm too sane for greatness. 

I don't think it's just that we expect extremes to go together, whether extremes of talent, personality, behavior, or whatever, even though that's clearly part of it. Culturally we are far more likely to forgive, or at least overlook, eccentricities if they come packaged along with incredible talent. (What, Mr. Jobs? You want a genetic background of that sushi you just ate? You got it.) I think we've come to demand it as a method of artistic authentication. And when I talk about writers, I'm not talking about the Malcolm Gladstones or Michael Pollans or Jonah Lehrers of the world, although that group's clearly been having its own problems lately, problems indicative of a whole other batch of fallacies about writing and ideas and public personas (but that's another post). I'm talking about the fiction writers, the painters, the singers, the actors--David Foster Wallace,  Amy Winehouse, Heath Ledger. Go back a little further and there's Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf, Vincent VanGogh. And so on. I could go on for quite awhile.

And it's dangerous.

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Did You Know That Marshmallows on Ice Cream Is An American Tradition?

Neither did I!

What We Saw on the Subway

Well, on the tunnelbana, techinically. Stockholmers love their dogs, and every third person seems to have one. Unlike in the US, though, the vast majority of dogs you'll see here are purebred. While I've heard of cat shelters for unwanted kittens, there just doesn't seem to be the same kind of pound system for dogs that is so ordinary in other places. A large part of the reason, I'm told, is that dogs here are really expensive (well, aren't all purebreds from reputable breeders?), and maintaining one once you've got it isn't cheap either. The goal is that only those who really want dogs will make the effort to go out and get them. I can't argue with that--the less often a dog is a snap decision, well, the less often the equal and opposite snap decision might be made.

We see them everywhere. They are definitely around outside, walking, usually with their owners but sometimes in one of those amazingly well-behaved dog-walker packs. And lots of dogs get to ride the subway, too. We once saw several huskies of varying ages (Matt started getting really excited about the baby dog, and I was being all snarky and reminding him of the word "puppy"--that is, until I shifted in my seat and saw the baby dog being held by its owner and subsequently melted), and that was the most exciting thing until recently, when we saw one of these GIANT guys:

To give some sense of scale, male Leonbergers (and that's what we saw), can get to 170 pounds, although they average 140-150, according to Wikipedia. This one was sprawled on the train car floor, and although he was being very calm and demure, he took up all the room between the facing seats and part of the aisle.

Now when we have the what-kind-of-dog-should-we-get fantasy conversation, this guy definitely makes the list. Apparently as long as you walk them a couple times a day, they'll sleep at your feet, they love people, and they don't eat cats. Once I can get Matt to commit to taking charge of the poop scooping duties--hey, I do the litterbox--I'm all in. (With apologies to owners of long haired dashhunds, those dogs are not on the list...we can't be like EVERYONE else in Ostermalm. How would we ever tell ours apart at the dog park?)

John Dalton on the Neverending Novel

This is one of those essays that keeps me going on those days when I'm absolutely convinced that my manuscript will never come together in any publishable form. Dalton's Heaven Lake, the story of a Christian missionary to Taiwan who undergoes some pretty severe life shifts (and a dramatic journey to China's far west), is worth a read itself. I found it back in 2005 on a Barnes and Nobel featured table, and being only a year out from my own time as an American college grad in China, reading it was like coming home to that time when I was horribly displaced from home.

As a writer, Dalton's essay is a homecoming of a different sort. It's comforting, as I finish out year six of writing my own book over and over, to know that someone else has been in this situation, that there might actually be something beyond the limited view of the horizon that I have now. 

Particularly apt: 

"Acquaintances are often startled when I tell them it took eight years to write my first novel. Writers barely lift an eyebrow. Some beginning authors write two or three books before they’re able to publish. Others, like myself, write the same book over and over."

Read Dalton's essay for yourself--it's worth the time.

"Lacking Vital Elements"

I'm really enjoying watching the Chinese press react to the London Olympics. (Watching secondhand, it must be said: I'm functionally illiterate in that country.) While I can't claim to totally get either culture, being an English major who's lived in China does give me a bit more insight than each has about the other. And this New Yorker article captures a very Chinese sense of bafflement at, as Evan Osnos puts it, the fact that "...anyone is bothering to try hosting the Games again," much less, you know, putting hospital beds and sheep into their opening ceremony.

Check it out.