We just got back from a whirlwind weekend of travel and events. More later on the fact that I've been offered a new job, we're leaving Alpena, selling a house here, buying a house downstate, and getting NewPages World Headquarters ready to move - all a giant UGH! to deal with, but will be well worth it. One of the reasons why - access to art and literary cultural events.
Saturday, we hit the Ann Arbor Book Festival, which was a surprisingly small event. Not hardly a couple hundred people were there at any one time, which was nice in terms of moving around and sitting in on some sessions, but a bit disappointing in terms of thinking there should be more people there wanting to absorb this kind of cultural event. But, then again, Ann Arbor probably gets so much of this, it's no big deal. School was also out of session, which may have had something to do with it.
The weather was beautiful, sunny, not too hot. Tents were set up in which authors read works, poets slammed, librarians addressed issues of concern, and children listened to storytellers and created bookmarks. We had the great pleasure and honor of sitting in on an afternoon session with Donald Hall. He read from his most recent book, which recounts his life with Jane Kenyon, and her death. "The book starts with her death," he said, "so there is no suspense." The rest of the book is about their life together, the joy of their time with one another and the pleasure of their literary life.
I don't know Donald Hall much, if at all. I've read some of his poetry, but don't know much about him other than what I know of his life with Jane. And I suppose that might be what there is to know of him. He was her teacher at UofM when she was a student, but once they left Ann Arbor for the family farm and lived their life of writing, he said it was clear that she was the leading force in their literary life together, and that he followed her lead. I guess I would have thought it was the other way around, but after hearing him speak, I saw a side of him that reminded me of my father, who, after many years into my own adulthood, I began to see as the more emotional of my parents, my mother the much more stoic.
Donald Hall also related a funny, very practical story of being a writer and simply trying to make money. I can't imagine leaving a tenure position at UofM (or any college for that matter) to go write. That, in and of itself is a truly romantic approach to life that many of us just simply wouldn't have the courage to do, let alone the fortitude to pull off. But, so they did. At the same time, the romanticized notion of it has a practical side - and Hall told of writing a children's book that became a Caldecott winner. The motivation for writing the book? Money for a bathroom remodel. So, jokingly, the bathroom has been named the Caldecott room.
I see my own work as not so much different, then. And that's what it is - work. Summers off for teachers? No such thing. Here I am now, cleaning, getting the house ready to sell - doing a lot of work that would have/could have/should have been done during the school year, if I hadn't been buried under piles of papers at home. Who brings home this much work with them? So, teachers spend their summers doing everything they should have been doing the last nine months had they had a 8-5 job. And, then I go and take a summer class to teach. Why? Money. We need the money. Pure and simple. It's not that I think students should have access to a class or that I care about their being able to fulfill their educational requirements. We're facing a lot of expenses now and in the coming months, so teach a class, make some cash. It's a job. Teaching is just a job like anything else. Like writing for Donald Hall. At a certain level, it is what we do to survive and thrive. So, no matter the romanticized notions of the lifestyle - the writer on the farm, the teacher with summers off - it is just a job. And, no doubt, if we didn't need the money, we certainly wouldn't do it. At least not to the extent that we do.
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