Franzen

From Franzen reading: (paraphrased from memory)


With reference to writers, particularly Kafka… just an individuals writing out there and there are things he doesn't understand in life, so he tells stories to try to understand them. That's what writers do.

Readers are an elite group… it is a luxury to read. And we come together in this thing we enjoy together communally, only for readers and writers, the communal experience we share with one another is that we are always alone. Sometimes our communal experience is even with dead people.


Three moments that struck me as worth preserving today.

--Sweat dripping, even if it is from artificial labor like an elliptical trainer, running down my face, my back… cleansing, purifying, oxygenating. Makes me stand straighter. If only to keep it from tickling.

--Driving and the trip to the city took me only 15 minutes. Some days it takes an hour and 15. But the weather was fine, the traffic sparse and moving. I moved to the left lane and let my zippy little car do what it was meant to do. I was going 75 when I went around the black Lexus convertible. A very sweet machine. The blonde woman driving and I made eye contact as I passed her. We smiled at each other. It was like yeah. I get it. It was a classic moment… one that I'm not sure everyone ever gets to feel. Freedom, brought to you courtesy of speed and the sunset and later the smile of the moon. And machines that look sexy and perform.

What more could a girl want after all?

--Finding my friend Keith after the reading. Keith is my image of the southern gentleman, from Louisiana, tall, well groomed, and soft spoken. He would no more make an untoward comment than he would let his 10 year old read the books he collects. (But he did get lost trying to get from the theater to the parking garage. A little flustered perhaps.) We meet by understanding in the autograph line after the reading, which is where we first met, just turned around and started talking. We have an amazing amount of things in common, and for someone I see only a couple of times a year, whose last name I don't know, and whose email address I don't have, we are very connected. We intended to sit together this time, but by the time I found him the reading had started. Neither his spouse nor mine care for the events. I go because I am addicted to words. He goes because he collects books with autographs. He has a whole room full of signed first editions. But he doesn't read them. When I ask him, he says he'd just as soon read a paperback mystery.

My favorite word when I was a kid was serendipity. Keith fits that definition. As do beautiful evenings in Houston, like today.