I'm Back!!

Well I'd just gotten into the blogging thing, and then my life went insane!

I found myself working sometimes seventeen hour days for the Obama campaign, so needless to say, sleeping took precedent over blogging and even writing. It was a rollercoaster ride but I enjoyed every minute of it. It was phenomenal!
I got to shake Obama's hand, and Michelle's also when she came to the small private college in PA where I teach writing. But the best of the best? I got Toni Morrison to read at the school for Get Out the Vote week, (my dream of dreams come true). She was so happy to do something for the campaign, that after the program, (during which I got to introduce Ms. Toni) I got to kick back and chill with the Toni meister, and the conversation was the best. (See photo above) I can now die a happy woman. Yes, I am a bit of a drama queen. So I guess I did write. I wrote the introduction for Morrison and some op-ed pieces for the local newspaper during the campaign. I (humbly) post the introduction here:

Introduction for Toni Morrison April 18, 2008
Get Out the Vote Rally

Some years ago, I was working in New York for an organization that sent writers into the public schools to help teachers develop effective writing strategies for their students. The program was founded on the idea that if teachers became writers themselves, they would discover that everyone’s process is unique and, in turn, they would begin to see their students as individual writers.

To aid me in my projects I read interviews of writers because I knew that when engaged in conversation, writers often divulge their views on craft and their varied approaches to the discipline. The writer whose ideas I related most often to teachers and students alike was Toni Morrison. I was held captive by her books and the information she shared in her interviews challenged me as a writer to work at perfecting my own craft. I became, for lack of a better word, obsessed.
Whenever I spoke at staff meetings it was understood that there would be Toni Morrison quotes lacing my words. Friends and fellow writers were on high alert to contact me if they heard that she was giving a reading somewhere, and they were further charged with procuring tickets to the event. During those readings, I sat mesmerized by her fiction, but it was the Q and A’s that became my classroom. Even my answering machine spouted Morrison gems that deteriorated into some poorly manipulated tagline requiring the caller to leave a name and number. Witness: Toni Morrison says, “The purpose of language is not to kill, but to [have] an intellectual and/or visceral response to the book.” If you’d like to get an intellectual and/or visceral response from me, leave your name . . . Well, you get the point.

The end of this is that my employer, as a bonus for executing a particularly difficult project, pulled some strings and presented me with two tickets to a private reception for Ms. Morrison when she was reading from Jazz at the 92nd Street Y. I was ecstatic. I imagined myself in a room of other privileged ticket holders discussing the works of this revered writer. In the days leading up to the event, I dreamed about the questions I would ask of her, considered the profound comments I would make about her fiction.
Finally, the day arrived. After the reading and the book signing, my friend and I were ushered into a room where a handful of people were gathered. Ms. Morrison entered a short time later, surveyed the surroundings, and then walked straight over to where my friend and I were standing. She extended her hand to me and as we shook, she asked, “And you are?” In that moment, I could not, for the life of me, remember my own name. My friend, sensing the distress that undoubtedly was sprawled across my face, introduced herself and then added, “This is (my name) and she’s a writer too.” I suddenly found my tongue and managed to blurt out, “Yes, yes, that’s who I am.” No doubt fearing for her own safety, Ms. Morrison hurried off to another corner of the room.

I have only experienced this reaction on one other occasion: it was the day I stuck my hand out and Barack Obama shook it and smiled. In that moment, I was again speechless until I realized tears were falling down my cheeks and a short time later I stood babbling, “I shook his hand, I actually shook his hand.” What I have learned from these two encounters, what I have since come to understand about myself is that, this loss of words, this lack of language on my part, followed by some primordial utterance, is how I respond when I am in the presence of genius.

The genius of Ms. Morrison is evidenced in her eight novels (her ninth, titled A Mercy will be released in November of this year.) In 1973 her 3rd novel, Sula, received the National Book Critics Circle Award. In 1988 Beloved won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and in 2006, The New York times Book Review named it the best American novel published in twenty-five years. Ms. Morrison was also the first black woman to win the prestigious Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993. She has also published several nonfiction books including, Playing in the Dark, as well as some of her major lectures. She’s also authored five children’s books with her son Slade Morrison, a short story, titled Recitatif, a play, Dreaming Emmet, and Margaret Garner, a libretto.

In her work, Morrison aims to subvert traditional western ideology, to disrupt what she defines as the Master Narrative. So too, Sen. Obama seeks to subvert the self serving narratives of special interest and corporate greed. He seeks to disrupt the stalemating practices of partisan politics and bring business as usual in Washington to an end.

When Morrison speaks of endings, she asserts that the end of a book, should not be like a curtain falling or a door closing, but rather an ending should be the opening up of possibilities. Barack Obama is opening up the eyes and hearts of all Americans to the possibilities of what we can be, of what we can achieve when we work together.

In her endorsement letter to Sen. Obama, Ms. Morrison writes: “. . . this is one of those singular moments that nations ignore at their peril. I will not rehearse the multiple crises facing us, but of one thing I am certain: this opportunity for a national evolution (even revolution) will not come again soon, and I am convinced you are the person to capture it.” She goes on to make this observation: “In thinking carefully about the strengths of the candidates, I stunned myself when I came to the following conclusion: that in addition to keen intelligence, integrity and a rare authenticity, you exhibit something that has nothing to do with age, experience, race or gender and something I don't see in other candidates. That something is a creative imagination which coupled with brilliance equals wisdom.”

I feel extremely honored and privileged to introduce to you tonight, a woman of keen intelligence, integrity and a rare authenticity; a wise woman who couples a creative imagination with brilliance. Understand this evening, as you listen to her words, that you are in the presence of genius. Please join me in welcoming Ms. Toni Morrison.


A bit pretentious of me to post this, you say? Well heck yeah! I count it as a ticked off item on my bucket list, right up there with driving up the Pacific Coast highway, and just as exhilarating! Now that my life has returned somewhat to normal (not counting my 84 year old mom dealing with my 92 year old dad's alzheimers) I will be blogging regularly, so stop by and holler when you can.