Writing in Duluth
One of my brothers, an enterprising guy, who seems to find the most joy in sweat, in chasing after one of his four kids beside his sweet and petit wife (who chafes gently at swearing and rude gestures, but will ask with kindness and a smile for you to be mindful of your language) owns this house in Duluth that must have been built by some rich people in the 80’s or 90’s. They have thrown themselves into totally renovating the space, driving up every weekend and redoing the kitchen, adding a dining room, laying new floors and paint and décor (and much more) to create both a home away from home and a space they can rent out for travelers.
I’m here at the house, marveling at its three stories and kitchen island that has more square-footage than my whole kitchen. I’m here to spend time with my family, do some writing, and be a sort of proto-guest, giving Ben & Molly a neutral(ish) opinion of sleeping there. But most of all I’m there to write, and I consider it part of my duties as a proto-guest, since all I’d want to do if I was a guest myself would be to host a writing retreat with my fellow writers there.
My mom is taking a nap, the kids are either entertained or sleeping, and my brother is out getting supplies for making nigh-unbreakable curtain rods so guests can’t claim damage was an accident. The only thing tearing those steel pipes off the wall would be sheer malice. I’m a stone sunk deep into the cushions of the couch, staring out the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlook Duluth, listening for the hoot of boats making their way under the lift-bridge.
And I’m struggling to write even given this space and silence. Everything is just so lovely that I want to nap, falling asleep with the cave-man-like safety of knowing there are trusted people awake nearby (Molly is up with the newborn somewhere). So to counter it I pick a nasty feeling and expand on it, imagining that little gremlin of an intrusive thought into the genuine thoughts of some other person:
She took ugly joy in seeing unfinished parts of her brother’s new home, especially if it seemed like something he’d just forgotten to do, like a 3-inch piece of trim between a doorway and closet, or a plastic plant with the clearance sticker still on the pot, or, under the raking light of her phone screen at max brightness, a patch of wall that hadn’t been well sanded, the paint finish rough under her fingertips.
Each little error felt like it erased some of her childhood failures. When she’d been 8 he’d been 16; no matter how much she excelled she would always be behind, even if she was a grade ahead of reading and he was a grade behind. He excelled in math and she was consistently below average. Worse still when she failed to hold in her mind the long pattern required for long division. Math was insufferable until geometry unfolded in her mind with the grace of an opening lotus.
Now she could look at the shoddy join of crown molding and imagine the proof of it, walking through each step until the text lit up red, pointing out the error of logic or measurement that had led to the imperfect merge of degrees. There was no place for her to claim the satisfaction of solving the problem though. Pointing out his mistakes would only be met with a back-handed Well aren’t your eyes just so sharp! blinking his big blue 20/20 eyes at her muddy brown ones, shielded behind thick glasses.
Nonfiction writers genuinely need to worry about presenting facts correctly and allowing others to access their personal thoughts. Fiction writers need to worry about readers seeing fiction as nonfiction. There’s a seed of reality in the above writing exercise, but the flower that grew is alien. My brothers were all ahead of me. I did suck at long division. But I am so amazed by the hard work my brother and sister-in-law have done while still managing four kids and their jobs and the pandemic. It’s the kind of energy I’m happily jealous of.