Column by Hal Walter
Mountain life – November 2004 – Colorado Central Magazine
THE OTHER NIGHT, while enjoying a beverage called “Wet Mountain IPA” and watching a new television comedy/reality series called the “2004 Presidential Debates,” it occurred to me that this column was due that day and that the day itself had pretty much passed without my having written so much as a word.
Instead, here I was grilling organic pork chops, sautéing vegetables and in general preparing as if for a Super Bowl party, though the televised event would lack such fanfare. In fact I’ve heard that more people watched the big game in January than actually vote.
What’s my problem? Well, it’s hard to say. At last count I have written more than 100 consecutive monthly columns or essays for Colorado Central magazine. Some months it’s easy. Other months it’s difficult to find something to say, or at least to find something that you think might be interesting to say to readers.
Then again, E.B. White, the author of popular children’s books such as Charlotte’s Web and Stuart Little, wrote in the foreword to his outstanding Essays of E.B. White:
“The essayist is a self-liberated man, sustained by the childish belief that everything he thinks about, everything that happens to him, is of general interest…. Only a person who is congenitally self-centered has the effrontery and the stamina to write essays.”
I must admit that I had to scramble for my dictionary to look up “effrontery,” which simply means “shamelessly bold;” I was startled to see that my mugshot was not included alongside Webster’s definition. In addition, the word “stamina” stood out. I know what that means, and, well, more than 100 monthly essays speak for themselves.
The essayist without an idea is a terrible thing to behold. He is like a caged animal, looking everywhere and at everything with a hungry eye, the same way a person lost in the desert for weeks might view, say, a fat rabbit.
There is first the tendency to tie oneself to the keyboard, hoping that an idea will somehow flow out of the brain and through the fingers. Lately I have been setting my 6-month-old Harrison on my lap and watching him bang away at the keys, a Child of Letters. Frankly, he seems more intent on producing words than I. Here is an actual sample of his prose:
/.oaXVB0I9IKL7HN1ooooooobbbbbbbbbfvf4wdddw wjjhhjey tt6ttttttt555t5rr55555555556yyyyyyyyyyyy y7iiiiivbbb56yuhhhhhhhhyoooooooooo0p
I MYSELF HAVE NO EXCUSE. There is the tendency to walk around in circles, do ridiculous chores, check e-mail, look up to the sky, fidget, eat nervously and pursue other such listless behaviors. Surely something must be noteworthy this month. After all, I live a charmed life in the mountains. For example, while trying to come up with an idea for this installment, I walked outside on a picture-perfect fall afternoon with crisp blue skies and golden aspens rattling in the breeze and watched three huge mule-deer bucks browsing the hillside behind my house. Yeah, so what?
I recently heard part of an interview with National Public Radio’s Terry Gross, host of the radio program Fresh Air. When asked if she ever dealt with burnout she quickly fessed up. But then she offered that the odd paradox was that the thing that usually pulled her out of such a slump was a great program. That seemed to help her move onward.
Recently, I’ve received some encouraging feedback. A neighbor called the other day to introduce himself and say that he had been reading my columns and had found them readable enough to seek out back issues of the magazine. A woman I met at my godchild’s birthday party seemed amused to learn that I was indeed the person whose writing she said she had read regularly. From time to time I also get such encouragement in the letters to the editor or by e-mail. I appreciate it all.
Still, I have friends who often ask: “Where’s the novel?” I have been encouraged to become more overtly political in my writing and have been accused of sorting my own naval lint with my words. Another writer friend tells me screenplays are the only way to make it financially as a writer. Yet another scribe friend encourages me to get back into the freelance magazine game. Recently I turned down the chance to write a commissioned book on the Pikes Peak Marathon; for some reason, janitorial work seemed preferable.
The truth is, I am an essayist. Nothing more. And the essayist will always be an off-brand sort of writer. If I may, here’s another quote from my newfound hero E.B. White: “The essayist unlike the novelist, the poet, and the playwright must be content in his self-imposed role of second-class citizen.”
I can handle that. But being an essayist also comes with other problems of a second-class variety, the least of which is not financial reward.
FOR INSTANCE I am decidedly in that “middle class” mentioned in the television debate series that deserves a tax break because I make under $200,000 a year. In fact, I’m on track this year to make about 15 percent of that baseline figure, and, well, about 3 percent of that comes from writing essays.
That’s actually not bad for Westcliffe, Colorado, USA, where there basically are no jobs, at least not in the traditional sense of 9-to-5 with paid benefits and a pension. Even attempts at “job creation,” such as light manufacturing and tourism, have failed to provide significant employment opportunities. Examples locally include a nosehair-clipper factory that I think is safe to say did not exactly become the economic lifeblood of the community, and a defunct ski resort that hangs over the Wet Mountain Valley like a monument to real-estate greed.
It’s a fair bet my tenure would be limited at such employment anyway.
For example, check out my job description for a recent day. After spending the previous evening editing newspaper copy in nearby Pueblo (49 miles away), I woke up to design a brochure, and fret about the topic of this column. I also care-take a vacation home, and the owners’ two horses, so later that afternoon in another act of avoidance behavior I would attempt to move one of these horses to a local trainer. As I walked up to this horse in a pasture of hundreds of acres, a truck passed on the nearby road. I lifted my hand, which contained the halter and lead rope, to wave. In an instant, the horse spun around and galloped off, bucking and kicking like a wild mustang.
Like an elusive essay idea the horse ran to a group of Ponderosa pines and there he stammered and ran around in circles, still bucking occasionally. When I again approached he ran once more, this time even farther to another stand of trees about a mile away, where he repeated his bucking and circling performance. I never caught him.
To appease those who would like something political, later that evening in the debate show, this one a “town hall meeting,” the subject of the environment was brought up by a member of the audience. Apparently it has occurred to at least this one member of the electorate that clean air to breathe is as much of a god-given right as cheap gasoline. Imagine that. I might add that clean water is also important to supporting life. If you don’t believe me check out some of our neighboring planets. Nothing lives on any of them because there is no air to breathe and no water to drink. There is, coincidentally, nothing to eat either.
We have spent untold millions of dollars sending spacecraft to Mars in order to learn more about this planet. I am getting paid significantly less to tell you that the only thing we really need to know about Mars is that it does not presently support life and that if we don’t take care of our own planet it will not support life for our future generations. Why not spend the entire budget for space travel on developing new technologies that free us from oil, coal and other polluting energy sources?
If I may leave you with that thought this month as you head for the voting booth, perhaps I have done my job once again. For those who need more specific guidance, here are a few endorsements/recommendations for Nov. 2:
President: John Kerry
Senate: Ken Salazar
Third District Congress: John Salazar
Custer County Commission: Write in “Kaminsky”
Amendment 34: No
Amendment 36: No
Amendment 37: Yes
Hal Walter writes from the Wet Mountains.
