Note Drafting

A decade ago, I decided to finish the stories I started. I regularly abandoned a narrative several pages into its first draft rather than solving for plot or reimagining structure. I didn’t think much about plot or structure. Instead, I sat at the notebook with a soft-edge idea or image. If I began with the right sentence I might slam through a first draft – but at the first stumble, I turned away. I quit to avoid failure. My notebooks were full of detours into self-pity, grade nine literature lesson plans, gossip, grocery lists, plans for our move abroad. So I kept writing. Twenty minutes at the kitchen table, to say I did, before bed. Two hours at a table near the sale shelves at Barnes & Noble. Sixth period study hall supervision. And then airport cafes, a tent in Peru, the Juan Valdez at Unicentro. All the journaling and story snips forgotten at the close of each notebook: this did not satisfy. When we left South America for the Middle East, I bought a laptop and told Justin I’d write a book on its keyboard.

We had a baby, and I would be home for a year with her. I could write when she napped. After a month, I hired a nanny to watch Claire for two hours twice a week, and I started my book. Which was more like starting a dozen books as I rummaged for a narrator and place and situation – all these narrators began to sound a lot like me until I made up a soldier named David and wrote a long, violent story I made myself finish at forty-some pages. David was the second story I made myself finish (the first also wrapped at forty-some pages) and neither were very good, but I was hooked on the exercise of finishing stories.

I had two little ones, taught part-time, and signed up for a couple of online workshops. I returned to craft. For years I’d kept notebooks. I’d minored in creative writing and led writing workshops and understood the overlapping elements of prose and poetry but during my early thirties I really got into my craft. What makes my writing mine. What I want my writing to do in process and as literature. I am still into craft and process.

I work slow, most of the time. Little by little. When the kids were young and I determined to practice the short story, I learned to do two things well: daydream drafting and note drafting. Both are as they sound.

All my starts dropped because I didn’t carry the story around in my head. I knew what it was like though, to think of your story, refine a scene or character in your mind, know the world. At university I took a fiction workshop and spent nearly the entire semester revising a single short story and the mother in the story was a puzzle I thought about on my early morning runs. It was getting cold when I ran down a dark stretch at the edge of town and realized what it was that the mother kept close, and the idea came so quick and sure that I stopped, hands on my knees, frost breath, and laugh cried. I returned to daydream drafting, in the car, while grocery shopping, on a walk along the Gulf.

I make quiet spaces in my day to think about a story.

The habit of note drafting was born of necessity: I’d have a scene or story in mind but not the hours to write it in full. (I rarely had an hours long chunk to write, but I’ll get to that another time). At my next writing practice session I’d make an outline to catch as much of the idea in my head as possible, and later, when I had more time or quiet, I’d refer to those notes as I drafted. Before I started note drafting I had a narrow view of how to draft. I thought outlines stifled creativity and surprise. Even now, I don’t note draft every scene before writing it out, and I rarely know the full story from its first sentence: I like the muddle of writing narrative, finding a way through the story, sensing its near completion. But daydream and note drafting taught me to carry a story around for the weeks or months it needs to become an early iteration.

Now I have a story to mull while loading the dishwasher, walking to the bakery. In addition to whatever short piece I’m drafting, I have two longer stories I keep rolling around. Takes some discipline to make your mind go to narrative work. Loll about for a bit. Then note where you leave off.

How To

August 5, 2021 By Sarah Marslender in Process, Uncategorized Tags: Writing Leave a comment

When the kids were little I’d get a manicure before flying. We might be delayed or tired or cranky but my nails looked nice. This year I schedule a manicure every three weeks. For the first time since the pandemic began, Seoul is under the government’s strictest social distancing level as the delta variant spreads. Summer travel season is quiet. One of the English language papers ran an article about the fun of staycations. At New Year’s, the same paper ran a piece about fun Zoom parties. South Korea’s vaccination campaign is slow but steady. We’ve got another year of masks, on campus and virtual learning, takeaway, limited socializing – the caution is mentally tiring.

The MFA keeps me occupied. Though I am off this semester, I write as I would with a mentor. I started Stonecoast with a set project: short narrative pieces exploring culture and identity, set in places I have lived or traveled. And that first semester I drafted work set in Kuwait and Colombia. Second and third semesters I drafted for two longer works, with an eye on the novella form. Now, with a gap before my thesis semester, I’m returning to my original short narrative collection, generating new pieces. At the same time, I keep the longer works in mind.

Yesterday afternoon I lay on my bed, lethargic. How do I do another year of this. I lay there thinking about this story I am drafting, thinking I should get up and add a hundred words or so, and then thinking about being forty and having skin that is starting to crepe and should I start taking collagen again or is taut lost already and what comes of this vanity that interrupts the scene I hold and build. I need more than nice nails for the year ahead. I got up and sat at the table with my notebook and wrote all the junk before listing what I want to write about writing: no how to but to again record and share this process.

Inventory

December 30, 2020 By Sarah Marslender in Process Tags: 2020, novella, Stonecoast MFA, Writing Process Leave a comment

Well, made it this far. Writing all the way. In January I traveled to Maine to attend the Stonecoast residency. Jet lagged and wide awake one night I read about a flu or pneumonia in Wuhan. You know how that ends.

Best part of 2020 re: writing is beginning the Stonecoast MFA. I returned to Korea after residency ready to read and write and so glad for the guidance of a mentor. And I absolutely love the connections I made with other writers during my time in Maine. Swapping work, receiving and offering feedback, joining the occasional Zoom happy hour at six or seven in the morning: all, and more please. I enjoy the writing community.

First semester of my MFA I drafted multiple short fiction pieces and played around with theme. I center on identity and culture, the way place can shape a story. Second semester I decided to make use of the support this program provides. Instead of continuing with short fiction I decided to write a “long story” and worked my way to saying out loud: I am writing a novella.

The novella form intrigues me. You’ll hear more about that next year.

Here is what happened when I began drafting a novella. I thought I might approach it as I do a short narrative piece: just throw it on the page. This did not happen. And that isn’t how my short narrative drafting works either. Any short piece (fiction or creative nonfiction) starts in my notebook, weeks or months or years back. The quick first draft comes from hours of mulling and writing around. Though I had thought about writing a novella before, or a collection of linked pieces (like A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan or I Want to Show You More by Jamie Quatro), and had even note drafted ideas of what this might look like, the whole idea was nebulous.

So I learned a lot. After years of reading short fiction to note craft, I now look closely at the structure and pace of novels. What are writers doing to keep me reading? My mentor talked about how much a novel can hold – all the tension you can include, all the storylines. I decided to write about a transition year to Korea, drawing from our own first two years here, but I worried there was too much happening for a story to work. What to cut. But the longer I think how to tell this story, the consideration changes from what to cut to how to rearrange or compress or raise.

And along the way: open to a different kind of story. Because I am not writing memoir (let’s all be glad), I can change elements or details. I can turn lived experience to create a new plot. I know this from short fiction. But sometimes when you choose a new form you relearn the craft in a new way. Like plot devices. Just inventing something to get the characters where they need to be. I’m allowed to do that.

I have no novella draft. I have a lot of scenes. Ideas. I have things too. This is a good project. This pushes. Even as I muddled the opening of this novella, I revised a few short pieces with greater intent – all the work is good. Overlapping. Return to the fortune and pleasure of process, the great joy that we can make and create.

The Dollar Stays With

July 30, 2020 By Sarah Marslender in Daily WP, Revision Tags: Poetry, Stonecoast MFA, Writing Exercise Leave a comment

This poem comes from an exercise led by Cate Marvin. Each month a Stonecoast faculty Zooms a writing session. I’ve missed poetry, was excited. The return was clunky. I kept at it, had some fun, shared the revision with my kids.

The Prompt

We needed a dollar bill to look at, better if we had one to touch.

The _____ is _____
It looks like a _____, a _____, and/ or a _____
When I see it, I smell _____
When I smell _____, I remember _____
I think of the time _____
It looks like _____ and it makes me dream of _____

We Got Five Minutes to Write

The bill is flat
It looks like a stock or play money or foriegn
When I see it I smell O’Hare
When I smell O’Hare I remember going home
I think of the time I cannot
It looks like my ticket here
And it makes me dream of staying

There was time left so I tried again:

The dollar bill is on my screen
It looks like play money, a game, something squandered
When I see it I smell sitting on a plane
When I smell dry, recirculated air I remember
Wisconsin, humid July
I think of the time we left last
It looks like that is what we did
And it makes me dream of first light

After ELEVEN Pages in My Notebook Over the Next Few Days

Noodling this exercise because I could not allow the poem to rest because it wasn’t really a poem yet. I like the challenge. For me, the point of a writing exercise is just that. I do yoga so I can run. I write from a prompt or imitate or try a new form just to see because all the practice feeds my work.

The Dollar Stays With

I forgot to tell you get a dollar bill. Shit. You
could use foreign currency but let’s stay with
America. Five minutes:

In my bag a Harraseeket keycard, a sleeve of
disposable masks, lip balm

a thousand won note shades of blue but no
one dollar bill

Let’s stay with America. Front back images
on my screen. I glance at

Washington delicate scrolls blue red fiber
squiggles heavy cream the eye

and light, cheap denomination almighty enough
that people live on

this, a day. The dollar is not in hand. In hand
it looks like a tip

for a tip jar at a cafe, a day old strawberry
doughnut at Skelly’s farmstand,

it looks like one of twenty I give my kids to
buy something American

(mint M&Ms, Lucky Charms, JoJo hairbows,
Doritos, fidget spinners, Silly Putty)

When I see an American dollar bill I smell
the recirculated air of a fourteen

hour flight home – cool dry antiseptic kimchi
lightly perfumed

When I smell a Korean Air cabin I smell
Wisconsin July – cut hay, bonfire

fish fry, my son’s sweaty hair like sun, clean
night slip through window screen

I think of the time when I stood outside during
a tornado warning

the night before our first flight to Seoul, Mom
and me watching dusk roil, churn

cold, strong wind cut a clear thought we could
lose everything here there

We really could. It looks like the four of us
fourteen hours ahead

this summer, and it makes me dream of
choosing this plenty, the dollar

not in hand

Do the Work

June 9, 2020 By Sarah Marslender in Daily WP, Process Tags: black lives matter, childhood friends, Heart work, listen, live for the born, living abroad, love others, social justice 2 Comments

There are three friends I remember from Italy. My father was stationed at San Vito and I started kindergarten at the base school. During grade one I walked home with Rosa who was brown, and whose family seemed much more interesting than my own. Rosa’s family spoke Spanish and her older brother, according to Rosa, just stayed home because he felt like it. At sharing time, I stole all of Rosa’s details and brightly relayed that my family spoke Spanish at home. Really? Mrs. O’Brien said, and called my mother. One of many calls during those two years at the base school.

Yolanda was a black girl a year older or younger than me. Our families attended the same church and our mothers got the kids together to play. I admired Yolanda’s hair. Twists and braids. The plastic barrettes shaped like blue cats, green dogs, yellow birds. Hair ties with plastic marbles that click clacked at jumping, running. Yolanda said her mother could braid my hair, and her mother agreed. I sat in a kitchen chair and did not complain at the tugs. I was excited to have hair like Yolanda’s.

Sleep with a kerchief, Yolanda’s mother said. That night I could not sleep. All the tiny plastic barrettes poked my neck and shoulders. Each braid pulled a tight little square of scalp. I unclipped the barrettes and felt terrible. When Yolanda’s mother found out, she laughed. I cannot see her face but I remember her sound was warm.

Jessica was white and in my class at school. She had a parakeet and gave me a packet of smelly markers as a goodbye gift and really, that’s about all I remember of her.

I began second grade in Wisconsin and graduated from a small white town. Small white town: mostly/ predominantly. Diversity existed. An Albanian family moved to my hometown. A black teenager joined my sophomore English class. Our sport conference included a team from Beloit, the nearest city with a black population. Diversity existed: barely/ rarely. But my small American town isn’t different from many places around the world – I now live as the minority in a homogenous culture. I don’t fault a place for lacking diversity.

But populations migrate. I think this is a gift.

When we moved from Italy to Wisconsin, my parents eventually bought a house one town over from my mother’s hometown. I remember her joking that she’d never be local.

When we moved to South America, it was like going home. Maybe my childhood seeded the comfort of being foreign. Maybe I wanted to find another Rosa, another Yolanda after years of Jessicas.

I used to wonder what I’d be like if we’d stayed in Italy, if my father’s service moved us to another country, and another, if I learned alongside kids from Texas, Virginia, Japan. Here is what I am getting at: place is not at fault.

Our hearts. But when our hearts change, won’t our places also change?

All week, a growing tiredness. A necessary heavy spirit. Sisters and brothers, we have sisters and brothers born into an exhaustion made of exclusionary ordinances, inadequate healthcare, unequal and unfair education, voter suppression, racist criminal justice systems, and prejudice coming even from the mouths and hearts of people professing Christ. This ought not be.

Our hearts: we cannot know fully. Ask. And lament. We have much to grieve, and we ought to grieve, and we must accept that the process of this grief is not a season of protest or support but the ongoing work of repentance and restoration. Be a neighbor. Do the work of loving others. Listen. Listen. Listen.

I want to say this too. The American church permits the hijacking of its faith by a political party that does not love the least of these. Too many have been wrongly swayed to think that governments bear little responsibility for people in need. Systemic racism is just that. People do not choose to be born with a knee on their neck. We need social programs, from the government, church or other organizations: we must give food to the hungry, support people suffering addiction, offer literacy programs, and provide housing and healthcare. We must elevate those who are low. Lift. Raise.

The hijacking of our faith. I think this happened thirty years ago when the pro-life stance guaranteed Republican votes. I understand voters for whom the pro-life issue is their single issue. Moral contortion to vote against the least of these and for the least of these at once. What I say to these voters is: vote for the unborn, but live for the born.

Live for the born: sisters and brothers, we have sisters and brothers born into an exhaustion made of exclusionary ordinances, inadequate healthcare, unequal and unfair education, voter suppression, racist criminal justice systems, and prejudice coming even from the mouths and hearts of people professing Christ. This ought not be.

Be a neighbor. Do the work of loving others. Listen. Listen. Listen.

Yes, Let’s

March 18, 2020 By Sarah Marslender in Daily WP, Uncategorized Tags: coronavirus, COVID19, social distancing, South Korea, work from home 2 Comments

This is week four of virtual school. At lunchtime I leave the apartment. I walk or bike to a nearby café where I order an iced latte and teach my afternoon classes. Today I biked to Shinsegae, ordered my latte and looked around. I started class. Afternoon shoppers got in line for a coffee, or bought pastries, or sat at a table for a late lunch. The space hummed.

For the third day, South Korea reported fewer than one hundred new cases to the WHO. Maybe the sense of urgency lifted? After class I scrolled through the Korea Herald, wondering if there was an announcement to get out, go somewhere, meet a friend, support the local economy. I miss a lot in Korea, for lack of language. And a few days ago I shut off emergency notifications to my phone – the texts announcing COVID19 cases in my area – because I was tired of the small fear that followed reading the names of my neighborhoods.

But maybe I’d missed the go-free-be-well text.

The Korea Herald headlines worried about travelers returning with coronavirus infections. (Our school, and others, asked faculty and students to return this week to begin the government mandated fourteen-day period of self-protection and health monitoring, limiting contact with others to ensure coronavirus is not unknowingly spread in the community. The idea is we’ll all be ready to be on campus after spring break). The Korea Herald also reported another delay to the start of the Korean school year, now pushed to April sixth. And another headline mentioned coronavirus clusters in Seoul: a call center, a church.

So nothing about tossing caution.

I heard five people cough during the four hours I taught and wrote at Shinsegae. I washed my hands four times. I wondered if there would be a Jukejeon cluster next.

At a table near me, three women in their forties and fifties were talking. “Do you speak English?” I asked. One nodded. She wore thick rimmed cat eye glasses. I asked why so many people were out. I explained that last week when I came here in the afternoon, there was hardly anyone out. “Did the government say it’s okay to be out again?” The cat eye woman laughed. She said, “No! It is not recommended to be out.” For a moment the four of us looked at each other, all of us out. “Then why are you out?” I asked.

I know why I’m out. I’m out because I cannot stay in my apartment day and night. I’m out because I want to go for a walk or bike ride midday and get an iced latte. I’m out so I can teach while not glancing at the pile of dishes in my kitchen sink.

But maybe I should stay home.

Last week I took the subway into the city for an appointment and the carriages were Sunday morning light during rush hour. People work from home if they can, and students too.

Should I also stay home? I don’t know.

I like to get out of the apartment.

I’ve appreciated the lack of panic in South Korea. The response to COVID19 is measured. Informed, thorough and transparent: and because of this, I haven’t felt panic. Caution, yes, but not animal panic. For a couple of days people stocked up on milk. And then a few days later, it was ramen. But we shop as we need. Walkers and runners and bikers are on the river path. By late afternoon most cafes are full of friends catching up, or students and professionals telecommuting.

But today was the first day I registered a greater volume of people out, moving through public spaces, touching counters and buttons and rails and doors.

To my knowledge, public health officials here have not imposed a social distancing rule as suggested in the States, to keep individuals a certain physical distance apart. So when I stand in line at the grocery store or bakery, the next customer is right behind me, breathing. But I think the worry is somewhat removed by the assurance that we know if a case is near us, or if we had contact and need to quarantine, because South Korea is vigilantly tracking infections, warning citizens and residents, and ensuring proper testing and medical care.

Today at Shinsegae when I asked the women why they were out, we all paused. Then the cat eye woman laughed again. She said, “We are bored of being home!”

Which makes me wonder how long we can go along with the recommendation to social distance, self-quarantine, work from home, attend virtual school. Because when things begin to look good, when it feels like we can all head out for the day, that is when we need to practice social distancing for another week or two. Or three.

I wonder what happens in South Korea as the coronavirus circles the world. Does East Asia wait for the curves to flatten on other continents before we start commuting into work again?

I did not worry until cases in Iran and Italy spiked. Watching Italy, I sense the care we’ve had in South Korea. Watching Italy, I fear for the States. In January and February I read about China, Japan, Cambodia, the cruise ships, and now I read about Iran, Italy, France, the States.

When I called home, my mom gave the rundown of closed schools, my brother’s canceled AP Government trip to D.C., the likely upgrade of internet service to accommodate work and school from home, and my grandma’s report that people really are stocking up on toilet paper. When I talked with Kate, she sent me photos of her trip to the grocery store, the produce and meat gone. My sister joked that homeschooling makes social distancing a little easier.

People talk about living history. Living through history. Yes, let’s.

But after, we live too. We should consider what that might look like.

“Tracking the Coronavirus: How Crowded Asian Cities Tackled an Epidemic” from the New York Times
The Korea Herald
“The Coronavirus Called America’s Bluff” from The Atlantic

Story As Story

March 7, 2020 By Sarah Marslender in Process, Uncategorized Tags: Birth, Jordan, Motherhood, Narrative, Petra, Story, Writing Leave a comment

We went to Petra but did not see the monastery. When you go, Marcia said, you have to see the monastery. She followed a Jordanian guide at night, to see the sky, but rain came, the rock was slick, and the sky hid. We walked to Petra in the bright morning, leaving a street of restaurants and souvenir shops to wind through ancient, quiet caverns. Claire was two and half and surprised us by walking all the way to the Treasury, racing ahead and turning back, cheeks pinked by the early heat. Grant was six months and I carried him, belly to belly, dipping my face to blow air on his neck, lifting him to nurse in the dark mouth of a cave carved from red stone, soot on its ceiling, a scent of cat piss. We ate mid afternoon lunch with a crowd of tourists. We talked about what to see next. The monastery, I said, thinking of Marcia telling me that even in the rain, it was beautiful. Claire was tired and Grant was heavy and the monastery was up a steep hill of uneven steps. We could ride a skinny mule led by a skinny boy. We wandered dusty ruins, walked past impossible columns, stood in the amphitheater. And I knew we wouldn’t trek up to the monastery. We could. We could but we were tired. That year after my son was born was a yield to motherhood, and that afternoon in Petra a stone to mark: let go, let go.

I remember the late afternoon sun turning my children’s hair to gold. We walked out of Petra and I thought I probably would not see the monastery, ever, and that was heavy and light.

Now I am wondering what to do with this story.

Now I am thinking of story as story, only.

When my daughter was born, I labored several hours alone before I called my husband to come home, it is time. I was alone when the baby shifted and my right leg went numb. I sat wide to ease the pressure on my hips and the baby dropped. In my body it was like an audible pfff-wok, two distinct, startling movements setting my daughter in place to be born. I looked down at my swollen belly and said to her, You’re ready. She and I were about to be new, together.

These two experiences are more than the words here.

I am writing a collection of stories about living abroad. A year ago I wondered if I could write a multigenre collection, tucking essay alongside fiction. A year ago I thought I might write a memoir about summers home, that odd way of knowing family, friends and country six weeks at a time.

Since January I have played with a different idea, to write a collection of stories without distinguishing my lived experience from the work of my imagination.

I lived it
if I put it on the page
I was there
when it happened

These are first thoughts. But I am finding a way to tell it all.

I Touch My Face A Lot

February 27, 2020 By Sarah Marslender in Daily WP Tags: #nohustle, coronavirus, COVID19, East Asia, South Korea, virtual school Leave a comment

Mid-January, I connected in Hong Kong on my flight back from the States. Within days there was conversation about coronavirus and within a week our school asked any faculty member or student who traveled to mainland China, Hong Kong or Macau over Lunar New Year to remain off campus for two weeks. When I woke up in the morning I checked the WHO situation report before getting out of bed. Korea held steady at twenty-some cases. I read about quarantined cities in China, and the cruise ships docked and waiting. (For so many reasons I will never take a cruise). Teaching friends who left China for their Lunar holiday resettled in other parts of the world while Covid19 spun through the country’s population. Korea asked universities to push back the start of the spring term, to delay the expected influx of Chinese students.

(Read more about this elsewhere, but East Asia is a tightly connected region – Korea and China have important diplomatic, economic and educational ties. A swift travel ban on all Chinese could have caused long term harm to their relationship).

Each morning I’d lay in bed and read another expert counter the effectiveness of closing borders or scroll through the search results of “south korea coronavirus” before returning to a page listing symptoms of Covid19, reassuring myself that for most people (for eighty percent of those infected!) the illness is akin to its more popular cousin, the common cold. There was comfort knowing that only a minority of those infected experienced serious, hospital-visit-worthy symptoms, and that around two percent of infected people die.

Covid19 favors killing elderly men. I am not an elderly man. But I am the favored age of the 1918 flu, the pandemic that killed my great-great grandmother and her infant son. So I am glad it is not 1918. For weeks I woke up like this, with these thoughts.

My nose was a little runny. Grant had a cough. At school a student would sneeze or cough and another student might shift in their seat. I wore a mask on the subway. The masks – and we should all know this – are best worn by ill people to catch sprays of fluid. Covid19 lives in snot and spit and can survive on surfaces: so wash your hands. And quit touching your face.

I touch my face a lot. I just touched my face. I may as well lick all the surfaces near me.

The comparisons to SARS and MERS did not help me. SARS and MERS are more deadly coronaviruses, but less contagious. Covid19 spreads through a population quickly, perhaps because its symptoms may be mild and dismissible by eighty percent of us. Or perhaps because the incubation period is two weeks and we may be contagious before exhibiting any symptoms. So I only appreciated the two percent mortality rate of Covid19 for a few days. Then I looked at the tens of thousands infected, the hundreds (now thousands) dying. But how many people are exposed who do not get sick? Millions in a city do not catch the virus, or do not get terribly ill, but we fixate on the hospital lines and empty streets.

Please don’t die, I whispered to my husband one night in bed. Okay, he whispered back.

Monday night I could not sleep. I lay awake at midnight, at one. I sat up and cried. On Monday our school prepared to launch virtual school. All day on campus we learned online platforms to facilitate teaching classes linked by screens. I whispered “fuck.” Not because I am uncertain about manipulating the tech, but because I worried what the shift means to classroom dynamic: what is the dynamic when you are together apart? I am a month into covering a maternity leave and I still mix up a few students’ names. I wondered how to ensure the academic integrity of an in-class essay. How do I teach while parenting my own kids who are home too? So I also whispered “please” because I need help to accept more change.

Teachers and their families started booking flights out of Korea. Justin messaged me about a couple more departing families. I’m fine staying, he texted. Some people worry about the stress Covid19 places on Korea’s medical infrastructure – if you have a small child or baby who needs care, will you be able to see a physician easily or safely? Some people worry about home country borders closing or quarantine times. I understand the decision to leave Korea.

But I am also fine staying. When the SARS and MERS comparisons were no longer reassuring to me I thought about how viruses just do this to a population. Covid19 will carry on and we might get ill. The unlikely could happen too. On Monday I was more overwhelmed by the change to our daily routine.

Our school is on a synchronous schedule which means I see my students during our usual class time. So I am trying to do what we’d do in class. It takes more time to share content or generate discussion because we aren’t physically present to read cues. Today I let a few long pauses sit until a student filled the gap. This will work!

But while I am teaching and Justin is EdTeching (and teaching) we have two kids who are doing school. Claire is on the same synchronous schedule as me and has set up a camp (lair) under her loft bed. Twinkle lights, lots of pillows and blankets, and one hot laptop. During a lull in my work I peak into her room. On the first day the novelty of being allowed unfettered screen time for eight hours was a marvel and she balanced her device on the kitchen counter while cutting an apple at lunchtime, laughed at something her friend chatted. She is occupied by her teachers and classmates, all of them meeting virtually each block.

But Grant is free range. Or neglected. We have to figure out how to do Grant’s school, I said to Justin this morning. Yes, he said. Next week, I said.

In the morning Grant shows me his Google Classroom posts. The kid has quite the schedule, all of the tasks connected to a pdf or video or doc. Yesterday I thought a change of venue might be nice so he and I headed to a favorite café after lunch. While I taught two classes he sat glassy eyed, hunched over his device at a nearby table. I checked in with him a couple of times. Did you watch the video about student-led conferences? Can you listen to the read aloud? How about writing? You can do math when Papa gets home. And then I gave up because I had grading and planning to do and I am not a person who thrives on doing more than one thing at a time. I don’t feel efficient or accomplished or #hustle when I whack-a-mole life.

This morning I did not check the WHO situation report. Last night at eleven an emergency alert interrupted my sleep to tell me via Google Translate that a man with coronavirus had visited our neighborhood. I touch my face a lot. More families are flying out. Justin texted me: I’m fine staying. We are fine staying.

This afternoon I biked to run class from Shinsegae. I asked my advisory students to give high/ lows of the week. More sleep is a high. No morning or afternoon commute is a high. Autonomy is a high. My latte from Baekmidang is a high. Where are you Ms. Marslender? one of them asked. Most students are sequestered in their bedrooms. I walk ten steps a day, a sophomore told us. I tell the group to try yoga, if you can’t leave the apartment.

I started yoga at the end of December. I wake up and move my body through an hour of held poses. My feet are stronger. My left side is finding its balance again. When coronavirus headlines began showing at the top of a scroll, I told my kids to wash hands, drink water, sleep. The idea that if we keep our body well, our body has a better chance at resisting Covid19. I quit thinking about this during yoga. I am quiet. I breathe. I go through the poses and wonder if I could live in our apartment for a month. I make a note to buy more soap and pick up dishwasher tabs. Outside today the air is clean, the sky unseasonably colored.

WHO COVID-2019 Situation Reports
Reuters Graphics: “The Korean Clusters”
“Why the Coronavirus Seems to Hit Men Harder Than Women”
Baekmidang coffee is a definite high

As I Draft: Choosing One Story (but Writing Two)

February 21, 2020 By Sarah Marslender in Process Tags: Craft Choices, Entanglement, Narrative, Writing, Writing Fiction 1 Comment

In Kuwait I got massage from a Filipino woman named Charo. (Her name is not Charo). In our time together she told me stories about arriving to Kuwait, working for an abusive family, finding placement in salons, learning massage, supporting her family back home. For a few years I thought about how to make a story of that story. I was naked. She was clothed. Something about that dynamic – the physical reversal of constructed authority (me, a white woman in the hands of brown woman in a country where racism was daily apparent) and Charo’s interruption of the usual relationship between masseuse and client, her filling all the silence with her story so that I had to listen – something about that dynamic is powerful.

I began to draft the story and yesterday I thought there should be something else happening to the narrator too. Like Charo’s story is a contrast or complement to another narrative. Many of my stories are like this: two or three lines to trace through. One of the stories I submitted to winter workshop is about a woman looking for the hottest water at a public bath in Budapest. But inside that story is another, of the trauma she carries around. Because that is how it works to be a person: we walk through good and terrible days carrying a bunch of good and terrible things.

And events or emotions entangle. I appreciate and examine the complication. There was a year when I wanted to have an affair. That same year a friend’s infant died. When I think of one, I often think of the other. Or when I remember traveling to Australia, I go my grandfather. We were at the gate when I saw my mother’s email. When I think of Australia, I think of a twinned narrative: that I might have canceled a plan and gone home to Wisconsin winter instead. When I think of Australia, I am seven, balancing on the crossbar of Grandpa’s ten-speed, racing down the hill. There was wind and his perspiration and the command not to fidget.

So yesterday I thought about what to add to this Charo story. Give the narrator a separate experience. Entwine the two. But I wonder if the better story is to understate the narrator’s separate life: it is there, given in a few lucid details, but not brought forward.

I consider who is telling the story. And whose story am I telling. The narrator is a white woman like me. I want her to listen like I listened to Charo. How do I write to make the narrator listen, to let the reader hear too? I think now this story is still an entanglement of two: listening is its own story.

Piecemeal

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