(cross posted from the PEN USA Mark blog)
When I applied for the PEN Emerging Voices program, at the end of 2007, I was a Los Angeles native. Five generations on my mother’s side. Old school L.A., yo. But by the time I made it to the last round, my husband and I had given up our L.A. roots and relocated to San Diego. 120 miles and a world away. I was worried about that when I walked into the final interview. I stood outside, at the PEN offices, which were in an odd little business park back then, and I said to myself, “I’m not going to tell them, if they ask me. I’m going to lie and say that I still live here.” (By the way, that lasted for about 12 seconds under the laser-sharp questioning from Adam Somers, the executive director of PEN, who is a sweet, kind man who will absolutely decimate you if he thinks you’re full of shit.)
“Listen,” I said. “I’m living in San Diego now, but, trust me, it doesn’t matter.” I could feel a trickle of sweat dripping down my back and into my underpants. “I would crawl on my knees from San Diego on a freeway of broken glass to get here.”
I meant it. And clearly he believed me, because I was awarded a 2008 Emerging Voices Fellowship. And sometimes it was like crawling on broken glass to get to L.A., often three times a week, to fulfill my PEN obligations. And it was totally worth it. But it took it out of me, I’m not gonna lie. And as a result, I thought long and hard before I applied for the Mark program, even though the travel schedule is much less rigorous. It was not a decision I took lightly.
As a Mark participant, I come to L.A. every two weeks or so to meet with the Mark mentor and my fellow Mark participants. I always come up the night before, because I’m not a morning person, and I tend to get a little panicky in traffic. And this is Southern California—there’s always traffic.
So, last Saturday, I came up early and had dinner with a couple of writer friends, checked into a PEN event featuring Anne Carson, and was back at my hotel by 10:00 p.m., with plenty of time to review my fellow participants’ work and get a good night’s sleep before a morning meeting.
And then God laughed.
I woke up in the morning and my cut-rate hotel had forgotten my breakfast order. (First World problem, I’m aware.) I was half-dressed and almost ready to go in search of caffeine when I bent down—as I’ve done half a million times in my life—to slip on my shoes, annnnnd catastrophically threw my back out. Not in an “Ooh, what’s that?” kind of way, but in a sweat-pouring, full-blown panic, I-may-have-to-call-the front-desk-to-come-help-me kind of way.
And my prevailing thought, through the whole ridiculous, getting-old-is-not-for-pussies debacle, the only thing I could think about was this: I cannot miss my workshop at 10:00 a.m. And you know what? I fucking didn’t.
There’s something I want to say here about responsibility, accountability, and fear. But I can’t articulate it properly, because I’m flat on my back, typing this from my bed in San Diego, where I am still in gofuckyourself excruciating pain. I have a big deadline coming up a week from tomorrow. Will I make it? You bet your ass I will. Why? Because even though I’ve made plans and God is laughing—loudly, and directly in my face—I will not be deterred from my plans. Seriously, no one gives a shit if I finish this book or not. It’s all on me. There are plenty of books in the world. We don’t need any more fucking books. We write because we have to. Let God laugh. We’ve got work to do. Am I right?
