Jo-Ann Mapson

A Present from Jack

As another year slides to an end, I find myself finishing up another manuscript to wrap in swaddling and send off to New York. The next book is already waiting. I outlined it in O'Hare Airport while I waited for the last flight out to Burlington, Vermont. Airport security thinks I'm suspicious. I've been searched, questioned, and I had my highly dangerous sewing kit taken away all in the name of September 11. I pretended not to care, but really I was fried at having to repack everything they pored through. I watched them search the elderly, detain a child, and make the pilot take off his shoes. It's a strange world out there, but it's even stranger closer to home.

No sooner did I get my son married off than he called me with a request. I have something for you, he said, and since I'm always hopeful for presents, I pressed for details. Bookstore gift certificate? Antique diamond jewelry? A puppy? It's the first sixty pages of the novel I'm writing, he said. Will you take a look?

In the ensuing silence I heard my little brother laughing maniacally, chanting "Mommie Dearest," and I knew if I didn't say something soon I might hear the sound Jack makes when he's about to cry. Call me sexist, but I cannot take it when men cry. I feed them pasta, wrap them in a hug, I will even rub their feet. Why don't you show it to your friends, or sign up for a community college workshop, I said, thinking Son, are you insane? Hasn't watching your mother cry over bad reviews and suffer carpal elbows or whatever it is that makes her arms swell up like sausage taught you anything? Sure, I said. Send it.

I read, pencil in hand, the way I do my students' papers. Few of them know how to use commas. They won't follow my advice. Know your ending. Write out character sketches. Do not base a narrative on yourself or you will paint yourself into a corner. Okay, the secret's out. 90% of the time I write by the seat of my pants. Yes, I make an outline, yes, the sketches, and yes, I'm sure the ending will be just the way I imagine, but then I begin writing, and veer off it onto more interesting paths. I had to admit, there in Jack's pages were things a writing teacher cannot teach, only encourage. A voice. Quirky observations. Careful use of image and simile. The world he sees when he looks out the window of the ambulance he drives to make a living. Break my heart, I tell my students. Jack did.

I thought about it for a few days, and then I called him back, and we talked. Read this, do that, I said, and I still think the class would be a good idea. But mostly? Do what you're already doing. Just write. Everyday, even if it's only a page, take the time to pen those ideas and observations. I couldn't resist adding, aren't you glad I made you learn to type?

Writing's not a profession where you grow rich unless you're Stephen King, particularly since Oprah disbanded the book club (Thank you, Jonathon Franzen, and P.S., I thought your book was depressing). But money's ephemeral and art, well, art is about as good as it gets, I think. There's something inherently satisfying about watching the pages stack up, and witnessing the evolution from idea to book. May Jack sell fifty times the books I ever will, and add his words to the great body of literature defines us, articulates what we feel, and changes the world at a snail's pace, but changes it nonetheless. May books be there for long airplane rides, to offer solace in the journey that can be found only in pages. I give books for Christmas. But clearly, Jack's already given me his present.

Happy holidays.

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