Epiphany in Baltimore

Wednesday, Mar. 09, 2005

Epiphany in Baltimore has moved to epiphanyinbaltimore.blogspot.com

The wind outside is howling, rattling the thin windows. I had the thermostat at seventy, but the furnace just can't do it, so it's only 63 inside the house. I decided to chuck the gas heat and just go with the space heater in my bedroom for the night. Holden is just as good as an electric blanket, after all.

I can't sleep, the result of my second straight slothful night at home. Last night, I came home and went to bed early, without accomplishing anything. Tonight, I had every intention of going to the gym, but took a nap instead, and ended up sleeping too long for a gym trip, or for a grocery store trip. I guess baseball is wearing me out a little bit right now, and getting home after dark every day makes me a little mental. I need to make it in to the gym in the mornings and then I won't be so tired at the end of the day.

Big day in my classroom tomorrow, as I drive over to the west side of Baltimore in the morning to pick up 77-year old Eugenia Collier. She's going to spend the day at my school, speaking with classes about writing and her short story "Marigolds," which is one of my favorites. The kids liked it, too, and I'm trying to get them to be excited about meeting the author.

She's fascinating to me. I love one-hit wonder authors, who write just one thing that is really remembered. Sometimes, it's novelists, like Harper Lee, Mary Shelley, or JD Salinger, but it's even cooler when it's a short story. Richard Connell wrote his whole life, but he's only remembered for one short story - "The Most Dangerous Game." But that short story has survived for a hundred years and will for hundreds more. As cliched as it is, I feel like as long as it is read, he'll be alive. Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" and James Hurst's "The Scarlet Ibis" are a couple others that come to mind. Collier is like this. She struck gold with this one story that she wrote in one night (I guess I'll see how much gold tomorrow, when I pick her up and see what her house looks like, ha ha), and she'll be remembered for centuries for it, and that's pretty much all. I think that's pretty amazing.

(I do wonder how much money one good short story that is included in tons of anthologies and textbooks nets an author. Probably not that much, I guess.)

I told that to some colleagues today, and they told me to go home tonight and write a short story that will be remembered. Too bad I've never written fiction. Someday I might be into that. I often feel that all the good ideas have been taken, though, and whenever I think about it, moment of fear creeps into me as I wonder if an idea is really an idea or just something I once remembered reading.

Anyhow, this is the second year in a row that Ms. Collier has come to my school and spoken with my classes. A sweet old lady, she does not charge me, just asks for a ride over. I think I'm going to cancel practice tomorrow so I can drive her back.