Megan Stielstra's Blog

Those are not bad odds, considering the combined total of readers of this blog is something like eight. Mostly it’s a place where I clear my head, ask questions and blow off steam, so I appreciate those three emails because I always forget that anyone’s interested in my steam. It’s such a different world than the day to day of classrooms and conferences, etc. where I know I’m contributing and can actively see the results, but at the same time am more aware of and careful of how I present whatever I’m presenting (for example, the paper I presented at the Writing in Education Conference last month in London was not delivered in the rambling, what-the-hell speech of this blog. Nor do I blog in my “the results of this study indicate the learning curve which overall represents the … “ etc. voice). Audience awareness, let’s say. Here, in my journal, I babble away: the guy selling ice cream in my front yard (his name is Chet, and he has two little kids who are very adorable and chocolate-covered), something silly I learned or imagined, something that made me mad, ways I wish I’d responded in a given moment but didn’t think of until just now (which happens all the time. I go to sleep delivering very poignant, dramatic monologues I’m not near intelligent enough to have constructed on the spot) and when the next reading is, etc. It’s nice to have that break from my constant—as if here I’m writing while sleeping and all the rest of the time I’m running around awake. Anyhow, thanks for those three emails. Here’s the answer:

Reasons why I haven’t posted in so long

1. I spent a wonderful, wonderful two weeks with my father. He and my stepmother live on an island in Alaska, so I see them waaay less than I’d like to. They flew in on the 2d (note to those three emailers: that was the date of my last post. So now you’ll forgive me, ‘cause when Dad’s in town, I make everything stop. Trains stop running, traffic lights burn out, people are frozen on street corners waiting for his return flight out of O’Hare to depart so that life may continue as usual), and we spent a week doing Chicago-y things: dinners out, Margaritas, shopping, Wicked (Ana Gasteyer of the Topless Martha Stewart Saturday Night Live played Elphaba!), coffee, dog parks. On Kodiak (where Dad and Marilyn live), we do Alaska’y things: catch wild salmon on the ocean, whale-watch, hike, visit bison, watch for Bald Eagles, sleep in ‘cause it’s dark (in the winter) or get up early ‘cause it’s bright (in the summer). Whichever place we’re all at, I love hanging out with my dad. And getting to know Mar (who I love. She’s the bee’s knees. She’s fun and kind and beautiful, and is patient with me, and treats me as a daughter, and inspires me to think about my spirituality. This, I think, is because she listens). And having Dad get to know Christopher (who I love. He’s the greatest thing on the entire planet. I had a freak-out yesterday, about something silly, and he kept saying, “So what REALLY is this about?” like five thousand times until I moved past the silly excuses into the real stuff. Plus he’s super-hot, and I am the luckiest girl ever. My dad and my boyfriend and my stepmother are all great and we all get along (insert Brady Bunch theme song) and love each other and drink beer and laugh and play Euchre HooRAY!

2. We (dad, Marilyn, Christopher and I) attended our family reunion in Michigan. Every five years, all (A hundred? Two?) the Stielstras come together near the homestead my great grandparents built when they immigrated from the Netherlands. We have cookouts, and bonfires, and sand-castle building competitions (we lost to my second cousins David, Tim and Tad, who crafted a very intricate Mt. Rushmore with mermaid fins coming from each president’s head. Mt. Rushmaid. We’d—what’s the verb?—concocted, via Christopher’s direction, a giant sand-worm creature, with eyes and teeth, eating a castle which I thought looked gothic but others said was vaguely birthday-cake-ish. We did get a special nod for “Best Multi-Media Castle” because Marilyn, using her special magic with children (this comes from years as a kindergarten teacher and summer missionary work with kids in Guatamala), wrangled up all the little kids on the beach (imagine multiple seven-year-olds in bright bathing suits, noses striped with sunblock), lined them up and coached them to, as the judge (my Great Aunt Ang) passed our sand-creature/birthday cake, scream out, “OH NO! The Sand Worm is eating the castle!” and then fall down in mock faint which was perhaps the cutest thing I’ve seen in my whole life) but mostly, it’s about getting to know one another, and keeping alive this very unique gift we’ve got. My own branch of the family—my dad’s brothers and sisters, their kids, their kids’ kids—are all very connected, but this reunion is about something greater: community. However different our lives, our beliefs, our choices, we come from the same place—Nick and Kate Stielstra—and there is a love and respect there that I’m only beginning to understand. “I’m Pete’s grand-daughter, Darc’s daughter Megan,” I’d say, and then I’d meet Bill’s son, John, and his kids, and so on down the line. When I was younger, it was more difficult: when you’re fifteen, twenty, twenty-five, you have other things on you mind (in my case: getting into college, scholarships to college, grad school, my students, my work, and—yes—boys) than connecting with your past, your faith, your family. Taking the whole of all these experiences and understanding what they mean to you.

My goodness, the closer I get to thirty, the more I wax philosophical. What’ll HAPPEN to me on August 11th? Will I get a corduroy jacket with elbow patches and a cigar? I actually HAD a professor with elbow patches and a cigar. In Boston. I thought he was very philosophical indeed). ANYHOW, what I’m trying to say is that, in learning about my family, I learned a great deal about myself.

I should note here that Christopher did an EXCELLENT job. Christopher met some two hundred of my relatives in five days, and not only did he respond remarkably well to all drilling (where are you from/where do you work/where will you be in five years/etc.) but he LIKED everybody. He had FUN. He got his very own Stielstra Family Reunion 2005 T-Shirt. AND he won Stielstra Family Reunion 2005 Nose-Flute competition. For which he played the entire Blue Danube Waltz INCLUDING the high notes. It’s now written in history: “Pete’s grand-daughter Darc’s daughter Megan has found herself a FINE boy and didja hear his Blue Danube? Boy’s got a GIFT!”

3. It’s hot. It’s hot and that makes me lethargic and sweaty and crabby.

4. Am reading like crazy: They Marched Into the Sunlight by David Maraniss, How to Breathe Underwater by Julie Orringer, and Anna Karenina (again. I just finished Love and Hatred, a biography of Leo and Sonia Tolstoy that included all sorts of their journal entries about each other, and I went back through the book to figure out what real-life events he fictionalized for the novel [lots!]. Makes me want to look back over my work and see what actually happened and what actually didn’t, and I wonder, would I even recognize it at this point? That’s the fascinating thing about fiction. How, as O’Brien says, the story truth is sometimes truer than the happening truth)

5. Last Tuesday to Ravinia to see Lyle Lovett, one of my favorite musicians on the planet. If you haven’t been to Ravinia, A. you should, it’s a BLAST and B. it’s an outdoor music venue outside of Chicago, with inexpensive lawn tickets, and you and five-to-fifty of your closest friends pack blankets and picnics and wine. There are speakers everywhere, so you lie in the grass and listen to the music (everything from the Symphony to the Gypsy Kings, Shawn Colvin, Ben Folds … check their website, which I’m too hot/lethargic/sweaty/crabby to link you to right now). At the moment Lyle took the stage (“Lyle! Lyle! Lyle!”), it rained. Faucet-style. And the night was very warm, and everyone stayed, and danced, and soaked, and (if you’re a Lyle fan, also) he did ‘That’s Right You’re Not from Texas’, and ‘She’s Hot to Go She’s Ready’, and … whatever that one is where he sings: “I make my bed/where I lay my head/I wish I heard what she just said,” and, my favorite, ‘Church’, with the fabulous gospel singers, that my dad and I sang when I was a kid. And it was so great, and sort of nostalgic, to be dancing in the rain with my dad to that song. He always played gospel for me: Aretha’s Amazing Grace album, and Sweet Honey in the Rock.

6. We’ve been hanging out at the glorious, genius place which is the Montrose Dog Beach, where five hundred (I can hear Christopher telling me I’m exaggerating numbers again. Which is true. Of course) dogs play in Lake Michigan, and dig in the sand, and run around in circles, and my puppy is in happy-doggy-heaven and then sleeps for three days (flat on his back with his paws in the air, which KILLS me)

7. Working crazy hours, but that’s nothing new.

8. Surprise Birthday parties. Everyone has a birthday this month: Wednesday was for Jeremy, and everyone met up at the Hidden Cove on Lincoln. Have you been to the Hidden Cove on Lincoln? It’s a dive, but one of those rare super-cool dives. A dive with ambience, let’s say. And an extensive karaoke menu. I’m proud to report that Christopher karaoked for his very fast time: that Proclaimers’ “I would walk five hundred miles” heavy accented song, with Jer doing the harmonies. They were SUPURB. I, unfortunately, wasn’t able to karaoke ‘cause in the very first round some other girl did my (insert air=quotes here) “signature” song (Total Eclipse of the Heart by Ms. Bonnie Tyler). Thursday night was for Gina, at Maggiono’s downtown, where I’ve never been but transported me straight back to the year I lived in Italy: big giant ballroom-y dining hall, everyone eating in parties of seven and eight, huge amounts of people enjoying good food and time together, and good food, and lots and lots of lots of good food, and it was great. Gina taught Kat and I the L language: where you add l’s after every vowel in every word, like this: Melgaln, youl beeln tall-kiln alnd tall-kiln aln nolt sawl-ilng mulch olf (oulve?) all-nall-thill-ng. She’s really good at it. I’m not. During the toast, we went around the table and everyone said something they loved about Gina, and it was a truly beautiful moment, and I felt very lucky to have such amazing people in my life.

9. I always say this DH Lawrence line in classes: I don’t know what I think until I see what I say. I’m reading over this entry right now, and noticing that the past two weeks have been pretty amazing. Maybe it’s like, “Megan, you need to clear through all this clog in your head because in a few weeks you’ll be a full-fledged adult. You need to think about the important stuff. Christopher. Your family. Your friends. Your students. Your writing. You need to consider all these things very carefully and come to some permanent decision that you’ll keep until you die because you’ve had enough time to work through bullshit and, come August 11th, everything will make sense." Except, when I go back to my journal when I was twenty (yes, I’ve got them. I’ve kept a journal pretty religiously since I was fifteen. Yes, the early ones are very boring. Yes, they are self-indulgent. Maybe the current ones are, also, but it’s always been the place I’ve worked thrins through, both for my person and my writing. Until this past spring (and this blog), they’ve been a very personal, My Eyes Only kinda thing. I’m still trying to figure out if the switch to blog was a wise decision. Time will tell) they say the same thing.

10. Does it sound like I’m freaked out to turn thirty? I’m really not: every year has been better than the last (or so my journals tell me) and I’m excited to see what happens next. I did that story about speed dating and poked fun at myself turning thirty, and then I got all reflective about turning thirty, and maybe now I’ll just shut up and turn thirty.

And get a really hot Diane Von Fursterburg and a martini.