I was just reading Diana Caplan's list of favorite moments from her day (dianacaplan.blogspot.com) and when she asked, "what are yours?" I thought of this piece of writing I did in San Diego. I love Nicholsen Baker and think this is a great writing question. Obviously, so does he, or he wouldn't have hoarded it. Oh- an amazing thing- this writing class he's referring to took place at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland, which I attended for three summer sessions and graduated from in '06. I can't believe he was there! And so was I! But not, sadly, at the same time. That's the worst moment of my day.
Best Moment
I just finished
Nicholson Baker’s glorious and sublime book, The Anthologist. Near the end, he is teaching a master poetry class
in Switzerland. He tells his students to copy poems out, to start by saying
what they actually wanted to say, to read their drafts aloud in foreign
accents, to clean out their offices and when they pack books in a box, to make
two supporting columns in opposite corners so that the boxes don’t crush and
crumple when stacked.
And then a man of forty
or so, with a French accent, asked, ‘How do you achieve the presence of mind to initiate the writing of a poem?’ And something
cracked open in me, and I finally stopped hoarding and told them my most useful
secret. The only secret that has helped me consistently over all the years that
I’ve written. I said, ‘Well, I’ll tell you how. I ask a simple question. I ask
myself: What was the very best moment of your day?’
Of course I asked
myself this question. One eye went on reading and the other eye leaned back in
my head and surveyed the day before. It came to me pretty quickly. The birds at
Chipotle. It was a hot day but I’d decided to eat outside. As I set my tray
down on the circular metal table and shooed a fly away, I thought I might have
made a mistake. It had been nice and cool inside. I set down my spiral journal
with the green cover, my Nicholson Baker book, and the little plastic box of 3
x 5 cards in a black and white swirly pop-art design, held closed by an
attached black elastic loop. At least the table was in the shade. I sat with my
back to the glass, behind which was a counter where a man sat with an earphone
and an open calendar. I was famished, it was 2:00 and all I’d eaten was a
container of greek honey yogurt as I printed out the records of my client hours
for the past four years. I’d cut it a little close in meeting the 2,000
required for my registration before starting this sabbatical. 2,242. I like
numbers, and I notice them. The 2s and the 4s here, all orderly then the 3 and
the 5 up there, having a party in their groovy retro sixties box. I was given
table number 4 at the speed dating event. “The Emperor,” I thought, from my
tarot days, and how am I ever gonna meet a guy with the emperor table. Why not
number 3, the Empress, or better
yet, number 6, the Lovers. Michele got the Lovers table, which fits. She’s the
sensual one who likes to swim naked and caress herself with silk. I’m the one
who makes charts and tracks her income, which is rapidly decreasing.
Indeed, though the
event had been my idea, and I’d invited three friends to come along, I was the
only one, after the returns came in, without a date. Admittedly, part of that
is my own doing, as I just can’t call that guy back, bachelor number 3. I don’t
know why I yessed him that night. I was rattled, looking for things in common,
bypassing the obvious, and already I’m bored talking about him and want to get
to the birds. I ate my barbacoa salad, took some healthy swigs of corona in a
bottle with a floating lime, and gradually relaxed. Looked up. Noticed the
flitting about of little birds, a whole tree alive with them. The more I looked
the more I saw. I wanted to count them but there were too many, coming in and
out of camouflage. Why this tree and not that one? I watched closely, but nope,
no birds in that one, even though they were the same type of tree. I mean, if I
were a bird, I wouldn’t go to that one. It was darker and irregularly shaped,
branches shooting up vertically. Oh, maybe that’s it, too vertical to perch in.
The tree they’d chosen was round, spacious, cupped with light. Each bird had
its branch, plenty of room, but not so big that anybody could go off and mope
and not be noticed. One bird hopped down and perched at the edge of a silver
bowl of water. At first I thought the dish was for the birds, (I know, I know)
but I realized it was a dog bowl. I don’t know what your town is like, but mine
is very dog friendly. That’s how well these birds belonged, that for a second
they tricked me into thinking that was their bowl.
Maybe I’ve talked too
much and ruined the very best moment of my day. It was, simply, sitting there,
hunger sated, noticing the birds flitting in the tree, like one of those hidden
pictures, the way they’d come in and out of focus, appearing and disappearing, happy.
That’s what Nicholsen
Baker said. That the best moment is often something that didn’t seem important.
The birds didn’t make it into my journal. They didn’t make it onto a notecard.
I didn’t tell anyone about them. But when I asked the question, there they
were, utterly un-self-conscious, not even trying, fluttering to the top of my
spacious day.
