The Regional Culture Project
or, how to turn life experiences and enduring accidental obsession into a possible accomplishment
In a 48-hour whirlwind of TCB + TUC (Taking Care of Business + Truly Unprecedented Confidence) I applied to the top MFA programs in the country which, as of this morning, seems like something I couldn’t have done. It’s kind of like how they say that a mother will effortlessly lift a tractor as a sudden deluge of superstrength enables her to save her child, except instead of the selfless mother it’s me paying a bunch of application fees on my own behalf, and instead of a tractor it’s whatever symbol appropriately stands for fiction by writers that some people have actually heard of. A couple of them, who don’t know I exist, have had an indellible impact on my mind and worldview and, and making a case for why they should know I exist and more than that work with me came unwaveringly two days ago. Now, I’m sipping this coffee at my desk thinking, Who was that? Who wrote those words saying, “They made me the writer I am. We should work together and here’s why.” Growing up, I was taught that if you feel truly on top of the world one day and entirely empty the next, it’s because the vessel of your spirit has expanded to make room for growth and healing and a more expansive reality. I don’t stand by everything I was told growing up, but this one I’ll take. And obviously you can have it too, if it helps.
So a handful of people are about to make some truly consequential decisions about my future. Which is fine, that’s how it works. I cannot do anything to influence said decisions one way or the other, what’s done is done. In my day-to-day life, I’m more comfortable with openness than with what civilized society calls “planning.” I like broad plans — we’re taking a trip in February, we’ll have a chance to see this person or that sight, eat this food — but I don’t like tightly-scheduled plans. I’m telling you that because I want to make it clear that I’m more comfortable than a lot of people are with a certain level of uncertainty. But I’m not comfortable with this uncertainty. This uncertainty — the uncertainty of a level of want you’ve never experienced, having no way to know if you’ll get it — is discomfiting. So what am I going to do to trick my mind into believing that life goes on, that it has not become one big wait?
Well, I’m not going to gorge on episodes of Buffy or Ally McBeal, because I have grown as a person, right before your eyes. I have to credit Ian for this upcoming answer, though, because it was his nourishing and meandering thoughts that got us here over tea yesterday morning. We were talking about all the places we’ve lived and the wild cultural differences you experience between different parts of the US and interwoven with that I was talking about some kind words that a friend whose intelligence I revere said to me about my aptitude for nonfiction, and Ian said:
Sarah Marie’s Guide to US Regional Cultures
I’ve lived in the South, the Southwest, Austin, TX which is neither, the Midwest, the Pacific Northwest, New England (which I’m no authority on but of course I’ll qualify that), and all the fuck over Northern California, in places that a lot of people born and raised in this dual-state state have never heard of. (Ukiah! Placerville!) And among myriad other differences that people from each of these locales are shocked to learn, every one of them treats disability differently.
Oh! There’ll be a chapter on Canada too, not as an authority of course, but as a tourist. You can learn a lot from a weekend in Montreal and a weekend in Vancouver and a weekend in Quebec City respectively. And of course, as an American, I basically have an obligation to pontificate about anywhere I’ve spent a weekend in. Can’t shirk my duty to my country in these times!
My coffee cup is empty and now I’m just staring at it, as though the elixer within was stolen by ilicit means and I have no idea where it could’ve gotten to. That kinda feels like a metaphor for life right now: I keep forgetting that I did all this shit myself, whatever “this shit” may be. I have also entirely forgotten that in most of the US, a fairly inescapable holiday is in progress. San Francisco truly does not recognize Christmas, except by means of two gigantic gold nutcrackers and a huge velvet (Santa?) throne outside of the nearby fire station, God help us. It would be the perfect photo for this entry, but of course I haven’t taken that picture because I had no idea I would get hit by a sudden desire to inflict its monumental tackiness upon you all.
This paragraph is basically the written equivelent of you telling me you need to get off the phone and me saying yes, I understand that, and I’ll allow it, in a second, but just one more thing. I’m going longer because the minute I post this I’ll have to figure out a day, and because time is a lie and nothing is linear, I don’t feel like I’ve ever spent a day without thinking about MFA applications. I’ve taken so many tight lids off of so many facets of my mind of late that I get kind of afraid of where my thoughts will go (just my thoughts, though, not my actions). I write without that fear, from the point of view of a person thoroughly and unshakably comfortable with how strange they are. That’s usually me! But today, a lot of moments that felt like dreams are revealing themselves to be true actions I actually took in what I grew up concieving as “the third dimension.” That’s this one. Fuck, I…I really did that. All right, that’s done, so what next?
I do have an essay to revise, mercifully — an actual fourthcoming one for someone who’s not me or you. I have a novel I can certainly revise, but given whose hands sections of it are now in, the files are currently laughing at me. The little screws on my glasses that are supposed to be secure on either side of my nose have been far too loose for probably eight months now and I should get them tightened so that they don’t keep sliding down my face when I have weights in my hands and can’t fix them. Wow, now I’m giving you too much information.
I’ll let you go. You can hang up. No wait—actually never mind. Talk to you later.
