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by C. Jeanette Tyson
It was warm
and sunny in
snowstorms in five weeks. There would be, again, no time to scrape the
ice from the side streets before the next bitter storm roared in. But that
day, downtown, there was respite, and legs without stockings, heads without
hats, smiles.
I
felt lightheaded and giddy but blamed it on the altitude.
I was there to attend a fundraising event for narrativemagazine.com.
Let others bemoan the state of publishing today; Tom Jenks and Carol
Edgarian have made it their mission to deliver fine writing, the voices
of both well-known and emerging writers, free to anyone with an
internet connection.
Now I assure you there’s more spare coin wedged in the seats of your
car than in my pocket but eventually in life one’s actions need to line
up with one’s heart. I believe in the power of words to heal and
change. Susan Komen can carry on without me.
Besides all that, James Salter was going to be there.
James Salter’s books are the bent and battered ones on other writers’
shelves; the ones they’ve gone back to again and again to underline
sentences and study character. While I like a good poetic sprawl as
well as anyone, Salter’s sentences cut, draw blood.
“Her own life had become like that. Money and dents in the side of her
nearly new Swedish car.” Oh yes.
Tell us a story commanded huge letters on our hostess Vicky’s front
door. And inside her large and lovely home, we did. Some of us knew
each other from previous workshops. Craig has finished his novel--
back
then it opened with a guy riding his bike home through the driving
rainstorm after harvesting a liver, a heart, some bones, and his dog was
chewing on buffalo wings and there was a sister in trouble -- and found
an agent. There was Ed, still writing poetry and now teaching his own
workshop; Sue, with triplets, now grown, and, her novel, now completed.
David and his wife have plans to move to Austin. There were new friends
to make: Jane, who left behind the exciting world of naming Estee
Lauder lipstick colors -- Faulkner’s Folly, no?-- and is now editing for
Narrative. Platters of delectables circulated, commiserations were
shared.
We
gathered downstairs for the readings. A pool table floated in the
sea of chairs but Tom assured Vicky it was okay, it had been that way
at George Plimpton’s place, too.
When Carol Edgarian walks across the room, the air fairly crackles. It
must be what happens when the warm winds of her huge heart blow across
the cool regions of her Swedish heritage. She read first, from her new
novel. There was Silicon Valley intrigue and a mother curled around her
sick infant in a hospital bed. Ok, Carol, finish that thing up and give
it to us, please.
Next, James Salter and his wife Kay, a playwright, read from their book
Life Is Meals. Later, when I spoke to Salter, gushing that I read his
work to try to teach myself how to write, he said this was a different
kind of book. Maybe it is. This book can teach you a little about
living.
Subtitled A Food Lover’s Book of Days, the book is organized around
the
calendar and their table.
It all began in the small kitchen in their Aspen home. Salter explained
how the two of them cooked back-to-back and then side-by-side; how,
early on, he’d asked Kay if she liked carrots and she replied she’d
never been there and he’d decided they were going to work out just
fine.
In the beginning, their repertoire was so limited they kept a journal
to avoid serving guests the same thing twice. Predictably, with so many
writers in the kitchen, the accounts expanded to funny lines, insults
and mishaps, and eventually, even, to notes about which guests should
never again be paired. It doesn’t matter what’s on the table, but
what’s on the chair.
The Salters bantered about various occasions and meals, about serving
not one but two dishes they’d never attempted, about elaborate
preparations that took days, about a soggy gratin and crumbly beef that
nevertheless were the centerpiece of a fabulous party. They were
talking about their lives together, when they talked about food, with
love of words as a rich sauce.
On January 25, the date of this event, the entry happened to be about
aphrodisiacs. Chocolate was mentioned, which led us to dessert, which
had its own story.
The phone rang early that morning, Vicky told us; she was to get to the
caterer’s right away. The restaurant was being seized -- honey, I thought
you paid the taxes---but the loyal chef had smuggled the cake out under
his coat. With chocolate and chili and other spices we shall never
know, it was delicious and not only because it was the last.
Which brings us to Rick Bass. Rick writes prolifically and beautifully
on the forces of nature and in defense of the environment. He read a
short story about two brothers, and a world divided into takers and
givers.
I can understand the nature of gluttony. I think it is the nature of
the terrible truth these days—that there is not quite enough of almost
everything, or anything. Or maybe one thing—one gentle, unconnected
thing—though what that thing might be, or rather, the specificity of
it, I could not say.
I don’t know how much money was raised for Narrative that night. I hope
it was more than enough, at least for now. But I got a heaping serving
of inspiration, with a dollop of commiseration. I got to spend time
with people who, though they may be relative strangers, understand one
part of me better than anyone else in the world. I got to nourish an
old, deep ambition and make a new plan. Sustenance. Life is meals,
indeed.
In Denver the airport is a long ride from downtown. There are buildings
and then there is nothing but wide, empty plains. Vast sheets of
smooth, white linen. Great expanses that must be crossed before you get
to the majestic peaks.
To
read an excerpt of Life is Meals, go to narrativemagazine.com
Savor
and please, pass on the literature. Other excerpts here were taken from
Dusk and Other Stories by James Salter and The Life of Rocks
by Rick
Bass.
________
C. Jeanette Tyson is a freelance writer and mother of twins. Her
award-winning branding and advertising work can be found at
thethinkkitchen.com
