WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.120 align:middle line:90% 00:00:05.120 --> 00:00:06.870 align:middle line:84% I'd like to make a couple of announcements 00:00:06.870 --> 00:00:08.610 align:middle line:90% before tonight's reading. 00:00:08.610 --> 00:00:11.400 align:middle line:84% Next Wednesday here at 8 o'clock, 00:00:11.400 --> 00:00:14.880 align:middle line:84% there will be a reading by African-American poet Cornelius 00:00:14.880 --> 00:00:18.570 align:middle line:84% Eady who wrote a really jazzy book called Victims 00:00:18.570 --> 00:00:21.390 align:middle line:84% of the Latest Dance Craze and has a new book out called 00:00:21.390 --> 00:00:22.800 align:middle line:90% Gathering of My Name. 00:00:22.800 --> 00:00:25.620 align:middle line:84% So that will be here next Wednesday. 00:00:25.620 --> 00:00:27.210 align:middle line:84% And tonight, after the reading, we 00:00:27.210 --> 00:00:32.910 align:middle line:84% have books for sale compliments of the ASUA bookstore. 00:00:32.910 --> 00:00:37.590 align:middle line:84% We have, I think, The Light Possessed by Alan Cheuse 00:00:37.590 --> 00:00:41.310 align:middle line:84% and A New Anthology of Stories, The Sound of Writing, 00:00:41.310 --> 00:00:44.310 align:middle line:84% as well as the collection of stories, The Tennessee Waltz. 00:00:44.310 --> 00:00:49.440 align:middle line:84% So those will be for sale after the reading. 00:00:49.440 --> 00:00:53.160 align:middle line:84% Alan Cheuse is from Perth Amboy, New Jersey. 00:00:53.160 --> 00:00:55.230 align:middle line:84% After working, among other things, 00:00:55.230 --> 00:00:58.080 align:middle line:84% as a toll-taker on the New Jersey turnpike, 00:00:58.080 --> 00:01:02.010 align:middle line:84% a ghostwriter, a bilingual high school teacher in Mexico 00:01:02.010 --> 00:01:05.220 align:middle line:84% and a professor of Comparative Literature, 00:01:05.220 --> 00:01:08.040 align:middle line:84% he came to the habit of writing in his late 30s 00:01:08.040 --> 00:01:11.280 align:middle line:84% and has since published, among other works, Candace 00:01:11.280 --> 00:01:14.100 align:middle line:84% and Other Stories, The Bohemians, 00:01:14.100 --> 00:01:17.460 align:middle line:84% a novel based on the life of American communist John 00:01:17.460 --> 00:01:21.570 align:middle line:84% Reed, the novel The Grandmothers Club. 00:01:21.570 --> 00:01:26.310 align:middle line:84% In 1989, Fall Out of Heaven, an autobiography 00:01:26.310 --> 00:01:28.890 align:middle line:84% of a journey across Russia, which 00:01:28.890 --> 00:01:33.000 align:middle line:84% was a stirringly beautiful work of narrative nonfiction 00:01:33.000 --> 00:01:34.900 align:middle line:90% and reflection. 00:01:34.900 --> 00:01:39.300 align:middle line:84% And in 1992, books from Gibbs Smith, The Tennessee Waltz 00:01:39.300 --> 00:01:43.170 align:middle line:84% and Other Stories and the novel The Light Possessed, 00:01:43.170 --> 00:01:47.580 align:middle line:84% a book inspired by the life of Georgia O'Keeffe. 00:01:47.580 --> 00:01:50.880 align:middle line:84% Cheuse is on the faculty at George Mason University 00:01:50.880 --> 00:01:53.460 align:middle line:84% in Washington D.C. This year, he's 00:01:53.460 --> 00:01:56.490 align:middle line:84% visiting at the University of Houston. 00:01:56.490 --> 00:02:00.240 align:middle line:84% You know his voice, most likely, from National Public Radio's 00:02:00.240 --> 00:02:03.270 align:middle line:84% All Things Considered where he's been regularly reviewing 00:02:03.270 --> 00:02:05.220 align:middle line:90% books for many years. 00:02:05.220 --> 00:02:07.770 align:middle line:84% He's also opened up a new vehicle 00:02:07.770 --> 00:02:11.520 align:middle line:84% for the publication of new works on NPR 00:02:11.520 --> 00:02:14.910 align:middle line:84% as the producer and host of the Penn syndicated fiction 00:02:14.910 --> 00:02:20.280 align:middle line:84% short story magazine for radio called The Sound of Writing. 00:02:20.280 --> 00:02:22.230 align:middle line:84% We're very happy to have his voice 00:02:22.230 --> 00:02:23.970 align:middle line:90% here among us for the evening. 00:02:23.970 --> 00:02:26.190 align:middle line:90% Please welcome Alan Cheuse. 00:02:26.190 --> 00:02:29.676 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:02:29.676 --> 00:02:34.638 align:middle line:90% 00:02:34.638 --> 00:02:35.180 align:middle line:90% Good evening. 00:02:35.180 --> 00:02:36.260 align:middle line:90% Hi. 00:02:36.260 --> 00:02:40.160 align:middle line:90% Not only the voice but the body. 00:02:40.160 --> 00:02:42.507 align:middle line:84% I was saying to some of the writing students 00:02:42.507 --> 00:02:44.840 align:middle line:84% this afternoon, I was reminded of that remark of William 00:02:44.840 --> 00:02:48.500 align:middle line:84% Gaddis' that the novelist is the hulk that 00:02:48.500 --> 00:02:51.860 align:middle line:90% follows the work around. 00:02:51.860 --> 00:02:55.620 align:middle line:84% So you've got the Hulk here tonight. 00:02:55.620 --> 00:02:57.960 align:middle line:84% But I'll try to help you forget the Hulk 00:02:57.960 --> 00:03:00.470 align:middle line:90% if the work is any good. 00:03:00.470 --> 00:03:04.160 align:middle line:84% This is a novel called The Light Possessed, as Alison suggested, 00:03:04.160 --> 00:03:07.040 align:middle line:84% inspired by the life of O'Keeffe and a number 00:03:07.040 --> 00:03:09.760 align:middle line:84% of other American women painters. 00:03:09.760 --> 00:03:16.060 align:middle line:84% And, well, it's not biographical in any narrow way, 00:03:16.060 --> 00:03:22.630 align:middle line:84% but I think of it as a kind of rhapsody on a theme of her life 00:03:22.630 --> 00:03:25.090 align:middle line:84% and the lives of a number of other 20th century women 00:03:25.090 --> 00:03:26.440 align:middle line:90% painters. 00:03:26.440 --> 00:03:30.910 align:middle line:84% The title, The Light Possessed, comes from a Whitman poem, 00:03:30.910 --> 00:03:32.950 align:middle line:90% which I shall now read. 00:03:32.950 --> 00:03:36.090 align:middle line:90% 00:03:36.090 --> 00:03:38.430 align:middle line:84% Sometimes I think I wrote this novel so that I 00:03:38.430 --> 00:03:41.640 align:middle line:90% could read Whitman to you. 00:03:41.640 --> 00:03:45.960 align:middle line:84% This is called "A Prairie Sunset" by old Walt. 00:03:45.960 --> 00:03:51.360 align:middle line:84% "Shot gold, maroon and violet, dazzling silver, emerald, fawn, 00:03:51.360 --> 00:03:55.350 align:middle line:84% the Earth's whole amplitude and nature's multiform power 00:03:55.350 --> 00:03:57.670 align:middle line:90% consign'd for once to colors. 00:03:57.670 --> 00:04:00.750 align:middle line:84% The light, the general air possessed by them, 00:04:00.750 --> 00:04:02.730 align:middle line:90% colors till now unknown. 00:04:02.730 --> 00:04:06.810 align:middle line:84% No limit, confine, not the western sky alone, 00:04:06.810 --> 00:04:10.260 align:middle line:84% the high meridian, north, south, all, 00:04:10.260 --> 00:04:17.120 align:middle line:84% pure luminous color fighting the silent shadows to the last." 00:04:17.120 --> 00:04:17.959 align:middle line:90% Thank you very much. 00:04:17.959 --> 00:04:23.950 align:middle line:90% 00:04:23.950 --> 00:04:28.833 align:middle line:84% This is a novel with two beginnings. 00:04:28.833 --> 00:04:31.000 align:middle line:84% You all probably know the French Lieutenant's Woman, 00:04:31.000 --> 00:04:32.140 align:middle line:90% which has two endings. 00:04:32.140 --> 00:04:38.400 align:middle line:84% This has two beginnings and a number of narrators. 00:04:38.400 --> 00:04:41.760 align:middle line:90% It's got many voices in it. 00:04:41.760 --> 00:04:45.720 align:middle line:84% I'll read a few of them this evening. 00:04:45.720 --> 00:04:48.000 align:middle line:84% The first opening chapter is told 00:04:48.000 --> 00:04:53.460 align:middle line:84% by a man named Robert Bolden who is the geologist brother of Ava 00:04:53.460 --> 00:04:58.730 align:middle line:84% Bolden, the painter, protagonist of the novel. 00:04:58.730 --> 00:05:04.190 align:middle line:84% And he's an old man in a nursing home in Chicago looking back 00:05:04.190 --> 00:05:12.290 align:middle line:84% on his life as a young student of painting 00:05:12.290 --> 00:05:17.900 align:middle line:84% named Amy Cross is gathering material and information 00:05:17.900 --> 00:05:25.430 align:middle line:84% about the life of Ava Bolden whose affairs she has come west 00:05:25.430 --> 00:05:25.930 align:middle line:90% to manage. 00:05:25.930 --> 00:05:29.170 align:middle line:90% 00:05:29.170 --> 00:05:30.820 align:middle line:84% The first section is called "River." 00:05:30.820 --> 00:05:31.870 align:middle line:90% This is Robert Bolden. 00:05:31.870 --> 00:05:34.440 align:middle line:90% 00:05:34.440 --> 00:05:36.838 align:middle line:84% "The world didn't begin with my sister, 00:05:36.838 --> 00:05:38.880 align:middle line:84% although I sometimes thought that it could hardly 00:05:38.880 --> 00:05:40.830 align:middle line:90% go on without her. 00:05:40.830 --> 00:05:42.930 align:middle line:84% The earliest I know of the rest of our family, 00:05:42.930 --> 00:05:45.480 align:middle line:84% or so it was passed down to us in a tortuous way, 00:05:45.480 --> 00:05:47.310 align:middle line:84% comes in the story of a small farmer 00:05:47.310 --> 00:05:50.670 align:middle line:84% from Kent named Wanda who sold his plot in the old land 00:05:50.670 --> 00:05:53.790 align:middle line:84% and took his wife and two small children to the new world, 00:05:53.790 --> 00:05:56.670 align:middle line:84% there to buy cattle and raise them on one of the Georgia Sea 00:05:56.670 --> 00:05:58.060 align:middle line:90% Islands. 00:05:58.060 --> 00:06:01.100 align:middle line:84% But on the voyage over, his wife fell sick and died. 00:06:01.100 --> 00:06:02.860 align:middle line:84% And so when he arrived here, this widower 00:06:02.860 --> 00:06:06.280 align:middle line:84% needed someone to attend to his two babes. 00:06:06.280 --> 00:06:08.290 align:middle line:84% On the other side of the island from his farm, 00:06:08.290 --> 00:06:10.780 align:middle line:84% lay a small village of dark-skinned people, 00:06:10.780 --> 00:06:13.240 align:middle line:84% a mixture of Africans and Cherokee many of them, 00:06:13.240 --> 00:06:14.470 align:middle line:90% it was said. 00:06:14.470 --> 00:06:17.170 align:middle line:84% A beautiful blend to hear the story told to you. 00:06:17.170 --> 00:06:18.970 align:middle line:84% So that the tall, dark-haired girl 00:06:18.970 --> 00:06:21.280 align:middle line:84% he hired to help him with the rearing of the children 00:06:21.280 --> 00:06:25.150 align:middle line:84% had skin the color of mahogany and eyes a miraculous blue 00:06:25.150 --> 00:06:29.110 align:middle line:84% that seemed to mirror the ocean that she so often looked upon. 00:06:29.110 --> 00:06:31.670 align:middle line:90% Melissa Tree was her name. 00:06:31.670 --> 00:06:33.400 align:middle line:90% And she was an artist of sorts. 00:06:33.400 --> 00:06:36.820 align:middle line:84% The first and only in our family before the present generation 00:06:36.820 --> 00:06:39.130 align:middle line:84% who collected seashells and painted with inks 00:06:39.130 --> 00:06:42.530 align:middle line:84% on the smooth inner side of bark. 00:06:42.530 --> 00:06:47.110 align:middle line:84% None of these artifacts survive, except in the story. 00:06:47.110 --> 00:06:50.710 align:middle line:84% But the story has it that Melissa and Wanda grew as close 00:06:50.710 --> 00:06:52.570 align:middle line:84% as sea and sand, and that she produced 00:06:52.570 --> 00:06:55.280 align:middle line:84% a light-complected child of her own as a result, 00:06:55.280 --> 00:06:57.880 align:middle line:84% and then another, and that she and the children were 00:06:57.880 --> 00:07:00.550 align:middle line:84% rowing to the mainland one afternoon in late summer 00:07:00.550 --> 00:07:04.030 align:middle line:84% when the sky suddenly turned from milky blue to dark purple, 00:07:04.030 --> 00:07:06.250 align:middle line:84% and a water spout whirled up from the horizon 00:07:06.250 --> 00:07:09.680 align:middle line:84% and flipped them over as easily as a child might turn a card. 00:07:09.680 --> 00:07:10.180 align:middle line:90% Help! 00:07:10.180 --> 00:07:11.050 align:middle line:90% Help, mama! 00:07:11.050 --> 00:07:12.640 align:middle line:90% The older children screamed. 00:07:12.640 --> 00:07:14.098 align:middle line:84% Follow me, their mother is supposed 00:07:14.098 --> 00:07:15.765 align:middle line:84% to have called at them as she scooped up 00:07:15.765 --> 00:07:16.870 align:middle line:90% the youngest in her arms. 00:07:16.870 --> 00:07:21.070 align:middle line:84% Walk, and they found solid stuff beneath their feet 00:07:21.070 --> 00:07:22.467 align:middle line:90% and walked to the shore. 00:07:22.467 --> 00:07:24.550 align:middle line:84% Their mother waiting for them to catch up with her 00:07:24.550 --> 00:07:28.920 align:middle line:84% and then prodding them from behind on this hidden sandbar. 00:07:28.920 --> 00:07:31.110 align:middle line:84% Such was the feat that my own mother described to me 00:07:31.110 --> 00:07:33.690 align:middle line:84% as Mother Melissa's miracle on a warm Sunday 00:07:33.690 --> 00:07:35.340 align:middle line:84% afternoon on the edge of the sand hills 00:07:35.340 --> 00:07:37.500 align:middle line:84% when we were supposed to leave for church. 00:07:37.500 --> 00:07:39.990 align:middle line:84% And she took my hand and said that we were going for a walk 00:07:39.990 --> 00:07:42.680 align:middle line:90% instead. 00:07:42.680 --> 00:07:45.583 align:middle line:84% I was four years old, an obedient child, 00:07:45.583 --> 00:07:47.000 align:middle line:84% though I had been wondering lately 00:07:47.000 --> 00:07:49.630 align:middle line:84% about the size of my mother's belly. 00:07:49.630 --> 00:07:52.900 align:middle line:84% It had grown and grown, and my railroad-man father, 00:07:52.900 --> 00:07:55.720 align:middle line:84% chief engineer for the region, had told me only that I was 00:07:55.720 --> 00:07:58.090 align:middle line:84% going to have a wonderful surprise one day soon, 00:07:58.090 --> 00:08:01.060 align:middle line:90% to be delivered by angel's. 00:08:01.060 --> 00:08:03.760 align:middle line:84% Father had a flat voice that sometimes sounded as 00:08:03.760 --> 00:08:05.500 align:middle line:90% though he were chewing pebbles. 00:08:05.500 --> 00:08:10.510 align:middle line:84% Mother's voice flowed slowly and thickly like caramel or honey. 00:08:10.510 --> 00:08:12.730 align:middle line:84% Father was upstairs still dressing. 00:08:12.730 --> 00:08:15.310 align:middle line:84% Mother led me out the door and I didn't protest. 00:08:15.310 --> 00:08:17.320 align:middle line:84% But after a few 100 yards of walking over 00:08:17.320 --> 00:08:20.170 align:middle line:84% the prairie behind our house, I complained because this 00:08:20.170 --> 00:08:22.342 align:middle line:90% wasn't the way to church. 00:08:22.342 --> 00:08:24.300 align:middle line:84% And that was when she caught me up in the story 00:08:24.300 --> 00:08:26.340 align:middle line:90% to keep me going on our trek. 00:08:26.340 --> 00:08:28.140 align:middle line:84% We passed the tall cottonwoods that marked 00:08:28.140 --> 00:08:30.200 align:middle line:90% the border of our property. 00:08:30.200 --> 00:08:33.010 align:middle line:84% Who knew what lay beyond, except that because of the train 00:08:33.010 --> 00:08:35.510 align:middle line:84% whistles, I understood that the roadbed for my father's rail 00:08:35.510 --> 00:08:38.539 align:middle line:90% company lay in that direction? 00:08:38.539 --> 00:08:40.039 align:middle line:84% You're a good boy, Robert, my mother 00:08:40.039 --> 00:08:42.500 align:middle line:84% said, squeezing my hand as we walked. 00:08:42.500 --> 00:08:43.220 align:middle line:90% Can we stop? 00:08:43.220 --> 00:08:44.059 align:middle line:90% I said. 00:08:44.059 --> 00:08:46.490 align:middle line:84% Save your strength because we have a ways to go. 00:08:46.490 --> 00:08:47.720 align:middle line:90% Where are we going, mama? 00:08:47.720 --> 00:08:48.830 align:middle line:90% Not to church? 00:08:48.830 --> 00:08:50.180 align:middle line:90% Will we have a picnic? 00:08:50.180 --> 00:08:51.350 align:middle line:90% Do you want to go to church? 00:08:51.350 --> 00:08:53.750 align:middle line:84% I shook my head and she laughed, you listen to me 00:08:53.750 --> 00:08:55.975 align:middle line:84% and you won't ever have to go again, Robert. 00:08:55.975 --> 00:08:57.350 align:middle line:84% There was something in her voice, 00:08:57.350 --> 00:08:59.360 align:middle line:84% but I didn't question it, only followed 00:08:59.360 --> 00:09:02.240 align:middle line:84% along a dusty narrow path lined with scrub trees. 00:09:02.240 --> 00:09:04.430 align:middle line:84% She was, after all, my mother, and I'd 00:09:04.430 --> 00:09:06.440 align:middle line:90% been trained to obey her. 00:09:06.440 --> 00:09:08.630 align:middle line:84% My feet hurt, I said, as the path sloped down 00:09:08.630 --> 00:09:10.070 align:middle line:90% through the underbrush. 00:09:10.070 --> 00:09:11.570 align:middle line:84% Take your shoes off if you like, she 00:09:11.570 --> 00:09:13.730 align:middle line:84% said, allowing me to stop and do so. 00:09:13.730 --> 00:09:14.760 align:middle line:90% Is papa coming? 00:09:14.760 --> 00:09:15.260 align:middle line:90% I said. 00:09:15.260 --> 00:09:17.000 align:middle line:90% He'll catch up, she said. 00:09:17.000 --> 00:09:18.380 align:middle line:90% Where's the food? 00:09:18.380 --> 00:09:20.930 align:middle line:84% I remove my shoes and now carry them one in each hand. 00:09:20.930 --> 00:09:21.680 align:middle line:90% What food? 00:09:21.680 --> 00:09:23.258 align:middle line:90% For the picnic, I said. 00:09:23.258 --> 00:09:25.550 align:middle line:84% That will come later, she said, taking my shoes from me 00:09:25.550 --> 00:09:27.710 align:middle line:84% and tossing them over her shoulder into the brush. 00:09:27.710 --> 00:09:30.080 align:middle line:90% My shoes, I said. 00:09:30.080 --> 00:09:31.502 align:middle line:84% You don't need those anymore, she 00:09:31.502 --> 00:09:32.960 align:middle line:84% said hurting me along ahead of her. 00:09:32.960 --> 00:09:33.800 align:middle line:90% We're almost there. 00:09:33.800 --> 00:09:34.340 align:middle line:90% Where? 00:09:34.340 --> 00:09:34.962 align:middle line:90% I said. 00:09:34.962 --> 00:09:36.920 align:middle line:84% Here, she said pointing toward the river, which 00:09:36.920 --> 00:09:40.250 align:middle line:84% at this time of year still flowed with some force. 00:09:40.250 --> 00:09:41.840 align:middle line:84% I want you to know something, Robert. 00:09:41.840 --> 00:09:44.240 align:middle line:84% When I was a girl, and she proceeded 00:09:44.240 --> 00:09:45.860 align:middle line:84% as she led me to the river's edge 00:09:45.860 --> 00:09:49.520 align:middle line:84% to finish the story of the miracle of Melissa Tree. 00:09:49.520 --> 00:09:51.920 align:middle line:84% You can't do that, I said, meaning that she could not 00:09:51.920 --> 00:09:53.360 align:middle line:90% walk on water. 00:09:53.360 --> 00:09:55.820 align:middle line:84% But I can try, she said, I'm going to show you. 00:09:55.820 --> 00:09:57.470 align:middle line:90% The water's cold, I said. 00:09:57.470 --> 00:09:59.840 align:middle line:84% No, it's not, she said, give me your hand. 00:09:59.840 --> 00:10:02.240 align:middle line:84% I looked at her but kept my hands at my sides. 00:10:02.240 --> 00:10:04.008 align:middle line:90% My clothes, I said. 00:10:04.008 --> 00:10:05.300 align:middle line:90% You're such a good boy, Robert. 00:10:05.300 --> 00:10:06.920 align:middle line:84% Well, you don't have to come if you don't want to, 00:10:06.920 --> 00:10:08.360 align:middle line:84% but I'm going to do it, she said. 00:10:08.360 --> 00:10:10.700 align:middle line:84% And before my amazed stare, pulled her loose dress 00:10:10.700 --> 00:10:12.110 align:middle line:90% over her head. 00:10:12.110 --> 00:10:14.270 align:middle line:84% I couldn't take my eyes off her stomach, something 00:10:14.270 --> 00:10:16.730 align:middle line:84% I'd never seen before without it draped by clothes. 00:10:16.730 --> 00:10:18.740 align:middle line:84% Goose bumps, goose bumps played up and over 00:10:18.740 --> 00:10:20.420 align:middle line:90% her belly and her arms. 00:10:20.420 --> 00:10:22.970 align:middle line:90% Mama, I said, and began to cry. 00:10:22.970 --> 00:10:25.490 align:middle line:84% We can do it, little Robert, she said, it's in our blood. 00:10:25.490 --> 00:10:28.430 align:middle line:84% Here, once again she offered me her hand. 00:10:28.430 --> 00:10:30.860 align:middle line:90% I shook my head. 00:10:30.860 --> 00:10:35.690 align:middle line:84% Very well, she said, I'll go alone or not alone. 00:10:35.690 --> 00:10:38.000 align:middle line:84% She patted her distended stomach. 00:10:38.000 --> 00:10:42.110 align:middle line:84% I was staring at it, its bulk, the odd wild tuft of hair 00:10:42.110 --> 00:10:44.600 align:middle line:84% that grew out from between her legs when she laughed. 00:10:44.600 --> 00:10:47.030 align:middle line:84% And I looked up and saw a hawk circling nearly directly 00:10:47.030 --> 00:10:47.805 align:middle line:90% above us. 00:10:47.805 --> 00:10:48.680 align:middle line:90% Are you sure, Robert? 00:10:48.680 --> 00:10:50.730 align:middle line:90% I have to hurry now. 00:10:50.730 --> 00:10:53.340 align:middle line:84% Tears burst from my eyes and I stood fists 00:10:53.340 --> 00:10:55.440 align:middle line:90% clenched as she came toward me. 00:10:55.440 --> 00:10:56.700 align:middle line:90% I backed away up the path. 00:10:56.700 --> 00:10:57.600 align:middle line:90% No, mama. 00:10:57.600 --> 00:10:58.470 align:middle line:90% No what? 00:10:58.470 --> 00:10:59.280 align:middle line:90% You don't know. 00:10:59.280 --> 00:11:00.030 align:middle line:90% You don't know. 00:11:00.030 --> 00:11:01.710 align:middle line:84% Let me take you back with me to Georgia. 00:11:01.710 --> 00:11:03.210 align:middle line:90% Come now. 00:11:03.210 --> 00:11:05.190 align:middle line:84% An animal called out along the river, at least 00:11:05.190 --> 00:11:08.770 align:middle line:84% that was what I thought it was at first. 00:11:08.770 --> 00:11:12.040 align:middle line:84% All right, I said, feeling lost and awful and lonely 00:11:12.040 --> 00:11:13.455 align:middle line:90% and wanting her to love me. 00:11:13.455 --> 00:11:15.580 align:middle line:84% I couldn't look at her much longer without thinking 00:11:15.580 --> 00:11:20.020 align:middle line:84% that I would burst or float away, some terrible thing. 00:11:20.020 --> 00:11:22.027 align:middle line:84% Come now, she said, reaching up to take my hand. 00:11:22.027 --> 00:11:23.110 align:middle line:90% You don't have to undress. 00:11:23.110 --> 00:11:25.740 align:middle line:90% There's no time. 00:11:25.740 --> 00:11:27.030 align:middle line:90% She led me to the water. 00:11:27.030 --> 00:11:29.340 align:middle line:84% The current was strong, but I paid more attention 00:11:29.340 --> 00:11:32.190 align:middle line:84% to her pendulous breasts, to the light on her belly, 00:11:32.190 --> 00:11:35.610 align:middle line:84% the way her skin seemed to glow under the sun, and that hair, 00:11:35.610 --> 00:11:39.190 align:middle line:84% the animal hair was how I saw it. 00:11:39.190 --> 00:11:41.350 align:middle line:84% That was how close we came before my father burst 00:11:41.350 --> 00:11:43.720 align:middle line:84% upon us from the trail, knocking me aside 00:11:43.720 --> 00:11:45.910 align:middle line:84% as he leaped toward my mother, capturing her roughly 00:11:45.910 --> 00:11:46.690 align:middle line:90% in his arms. 00:11:46.690 --> 00:11:48.160 align:middle line:90% No, she said in a wail. 00:11:48.160 --> 00:11:48.760 align:middle line:90% I want to go. 00:11:48.760 --> 00:11:50.350 align:middle line:84% I want to go and you can't stop me. 00:11:50.350 --> 00:11:52.680 align:middle line:84% I rushed at him and beat at his thighs with my fist. 00:11:52.680 --> 00:11:53.180 align:middle line:90% Let her go! 00:11:53.180 --> 00:11:54.370 align:middle line:90% Let her go! 00:11:54.370 --> 00:11:56.830 align:middle line:84% He removed the hand from her in order to bat me away, 00:11:56.830 --> 00:11:58.750 align:middle line:84% sending me tumbling into the dust. 00:11:58.750 --> 00:12:01.150 align:middle line:84% Mama, mama, I was crying over and over again 00:12:01.150 --> 00:12:02.920 align:middle line:84% as I watched him attempt to dress her 00:12:02.920 --> 00:12:05.200 align:middle line:90% even as she kept on struggling. 00:12:05.200 --> 00:12:07.150 align:middle line:84% Louise, he said, Louise, you stop this. 00:12:07.150 --> 00:12:07.780 align:middle line:90% Hold still. 00:12:07.780 --> 00:12:09.400 align:middle line:90% Hold still. 00:12:09.400 --> 00:12:11.225 align:middle line:84% She made a horrible noise like something 00:12:11.225 --> 00:12:12.850 align:middle line:84% you might hear at night from a distance 00:12:12.850 --> 00:12:14.530 align:middle line:90% while trying to fall asleep. 00:12:14.530 --> 00:12:17.500 align:middle line:84% And she slipped from his grasp, leaving him holding her dress 00:12:17.500 --> 00:12:19.540 align:middle line:84% while she stood panting and moaning, 00:12:19.540 --> 00:12:21.880 align:middle line:84% her arms hanging limply at her sides. 00:12:21.880 --> 00:12:24.640 align:middle line:84% Her eyes, oh, her eyes were wild. 00:12:24.640 --> 00:12:28.360 align:middle line:84% I won't, she said, raising her fist above her belly, I won't. 00:12:28.360 --> 00:12:30.460 align:middle line:84% A few hard thuds sounded in my ears 00:12:30.460 --> 00:12:32.080 align:middle line:84% before my father took her in his arms 00:12:32.080 --> 00:12:34.600 align:middle line:84% again, this time wrestling her to the ground. 00:12:34.600 --> 00:12:36.670 align:middle line:90% Robert, he called to me. 00:12:36.670 --> 00:12:39.490 align:middle line:84% He was short of breath and sounded hoarse like an animal 00:12:39.490 --> 00:12:40.000 align:middle line:90% himself. 00:12:40.000 --> 00:12:42.160 align:middle line:90% Go back to the house. 00:12:42.160 --> 00:12:44.650 align:middle line:84% That was when I discovered my own shortness of breath. 00:12:44.650 --> 00:12:46.450 align:middle line:90% I-- go, he said. 00:12:46.450 --> 00:12:47.950 align:middle line:90% Let me go, she said. 00:12:47.950 --> 00:12:48.800 align:middle line:90% Get, he said. 00:12:48.800 --> 00:12:50.230 align:middle line:90% I can't go. 00:12:50.230 --> 00:12:51.640 align:middle line:90% My shoes, I said. 00:12:51.640 --> 00:12:52.630 align:middle line:90% Go, he said. 00:12:52.630 --> 00:12:54.730 align:middle line:84% No, she said, I want to take him with me. 00:12:54.730 --> 00:12:57.790 align:middle line:84% My father raised his hand, a flat, ugly thud 00:12:57.790 --> 00:12:59.590 align:middle line:90% echoed across the clearing. 00:12:59.590 --> 00:13:01.870 align:middle line:84% I looked around to see blood seeping from the corner 00:13:01.870 --> 00:13:04.900 align:middle line:90% of my mother's mouth. 00:13:04.900 --> 00:13:08.410 align:middle line:84% We return to the house, though I don't remember the walk. 00:13:08.410 --> 00:13:10.780 align:middle line:84% Father took me in his arms and put me to bed. 00:13:10.780 --> 00:13:13.300 align:middle line:84% And I know that I heard the doctor's voice drifting up 00:13:13.300 --> 00:13:15.910 align:middle line:84% the stairwell of sour dry speech that 00:13:15.910 --> 00:13:18.340 align:middle line:84% was punctuated now and then with small bird-like chirpings 00:13:18.340 --> 00:13:21.290 align:middle line:90% from my mother. 00:13:21.290 --> 00:13:24.380 align:middle line:84% My mother shout-awakened me early the next morning. 00:13:24.380 --> 00:13:26.240 align:middle line:90% The house filled with her moans. 00:13:26.240 --> 00:13:28.370 align:middle line:84% The sharp barked orders of the doctor. 00:13:28.370 --> 00:13:31.380 align:middle line:90% The odor of sav and steam. 00:13:31.380 --> 00:13:33.630 align:middle line:84% A girl, the doctor came out of the room 00:13:33.630 --> 00:13:36.840 align:middle line:84% to announce around 6:00 that evening. 00:13:36.840 --> 00:13:39.470 align:middle line:84% Then there was a second girl born a few minutes later, 00:13:39.470 --> 00:13:41.580 align:middle line:90% born dead. 00:13:41.580 --> 00:13:46.480 align:middle line:84% My mother died around midnight and our lives, Aiba's and mine, 00:13:46.480 --> 00:13:48.385 align:middle line:90% together, had begun. 00:13:48.385 --> 00:13:55.270 align:middle line:90% 00:13:55.270 --> 00:13:57.880 align:middle line:90% That's the opening chapter. 00:13:57.880 --> 00:14:01.130 align:middle line:84% Then here's the second opening chapter, 00:14:01.130 --> 00:14:02.590 align:middle line:84% which I hope lends a little relief. 00:14:02.590 --> 00:14:06.710 align:middle line:90% 00:14:06.710 --> 00:14:15.230 align:middle line:84% This is Amy Cross, Bennington student, daughter of Virginia 00:14:15.230 --> 00:14:18.230 align:middle line:84% who takes up with a young fellow named 00:14:18.230 --> 00:14:20.870 align:middle line:90% Michael Guillen who is the-- 00:14:20.870 --> 00:14:23.390 align:middle line:90% 00:14:23.390 --> 00:14:25.485 align:middle line:84% you don't know this as you come into this chapter, 00:14:25.485 --> 00:14:26.860 align:middle line:84% but as I was telling you earlier, 00:14:26.860 --> 00:14:30.940 align:middle line:84% Guillen is the child born out of wedlock 00:14:30.940 --> 00:14:39.770 align:middle line:84% to the aging photographer whom Aiba Bolden grows up to marry. 00:14:39.770 --> 00:14:43.137 align:middle line:84% But that all emerges slowly in this chapter. 00:14:43.137 --> 00:14:44.720 align:middle line:84% Hope some other things emerge quickly. 00:14:44.720 --> 00:14:45.770 align:middle line:90% Here's Amy Cross. 00:14:45.770 --> 00:14:48.570 align:middle line:90% 00:14:48.570 --> 00:14:51.300 align:middle line:84% Some of us took longer than others to get here 00:14:51.300 --> 00:14:53.880 align:middle line:84% and to find our vocations as well. 00:14:53.880 --> 00:14:55.980 align:middle line:84% Myself, I was only a few years past 20 00:14:55.980 --> 00:14:58.320 align:middle line:84% when I started in this westerly direction in Michael's 00:14:58.320 --> 00:15:00.060 align:middle line:84% little maroon pickup with new tires 00:15:00.060 --> 00:15:02.490 align:middle line:84% that we bought with money that Cissy, his mother, 00:15:02.490 --> 00:15:05.300 align:middle line:90% gave us as a farewell present. 00:15:05.300 --> 00:15:08.120 align:middle line:84% Although I suppose I'd taken my first step much further 00:15:08.120 --> 00:15:11.330 align:middle line:84% back than that, perhaps on a day in Virginia when I was walking 00:15:11.330 --> 00:15:13.430 align:middle line:84% and dreaming as little girls do along the banks 00:15:13.430 --> 00:15:15.388 align:middle line:84% of the Rappahannock where my parents had always 00:15:15.388 --> 00:15:16.700 align:middle line:90% kept a summer house. 00:15:16.700 --> 00:15:18.560 align:middle line:84% And something about the way the sun caught 00:15:18.560 --> 00:15:20.520 align:middle line:84% on the rushing current drew me to a halt, 00:15:20.520 --> 00:15:24.475 align:middle line:84% and I stared for a long while at the dancing patterns of light. 00:15:24.475 --> 00:15:25.850 align:middle line:84% I came out the next morning armed 00:15:25.850 --> 00:15:28.370 align:middle line:84% with one of my father's yellow drafting pads and a grease 00:15:28.370 --> 00:15:31.390 align:middle line:84% pencil, trying to sketch the flow. 00:15:31.390 --> 00:15:33.280 align:middle line:84% How unmercifully my brothers teased me 00:15:33.280 --> 00:15:35.320 align:middle line:84% when they discovered what I was doing. 00:15:35.320 --> 00:15:37.540 align:middle line:84% I kept on drawing all through grade school 00:15:37.540 --> 00:15:40.540 align:middle line:84% and the upper levels too, and I took a giant step 00:15:40.540 --> 00:15:42.250 align:middle line:84% toward where I now live and work today 00:15:42.250 --> 00:15:46.360 align:middle line:84% when I applied to Bennington as an art major and was accepted. 00:15:46.360 --> 00:15:49.120 align:middle line:84% There I learned among other seemingly useless things 00:15:49.120 --> 00:15:52.180 align:middle line:84% that though I was only 5 foot 5 and rather slender, 00:15:52.180 --> 00:15:55.870 align:middle line:84% I could drink with dirty old men and weld pieces of steel 00:15:55.870 --> 00:15:57.708 align:middle line:90% into sculpture 00:15:57.708 --> 00:15:59.250 align:middle line:84% I remember the look my father gave me 00:15:59.250 --> 00:16:00.780 align:middle line:84% when he came up for the student show 00:16:00.780 --> 00:16:03.630 align:middle line:84% where my first creation appeared. 00:16:03.630 --> 00:16:05.820 align:middle line:84% Is it going to be architecture then, Ame? 00:16:05.820 --> 00:16:07.710 align:middle line:84% He had a pitiful look of hope in his eye. 00:16:07.710 --> 00:16:10.650 align:middle line:84% None of my brothers gave a damn for what he did. 00:16:10.650 --> 00:16:12.992 align:middle line:84% Gee, I don't know, daddy, I said, frightening myself 00:16:12.992 --> 00:16:14.700 align:middle line:84% with a sudden understanding of how much I 00:16:14.700 --> 00:16:17.460 align:middle line:90% wanted to please him, could be. 00:16:17.460 --> 00:16:20.190 align:middle line:84% I pushed some of my hair from my eyes 00:16:20.190 --> 00:16:22.920 align:middle line:84% and struck a pose that I'd seen other girls put on while 00:16:22.920 --> 00:16:24.150 align:middle line:90% talking about their work. 00:16:24.150 --> 00:16:25.830 align:middle line:90% And then again, who knows? 00:16:25.830 --> 00:16:28.290 align:middle line:84% Well, I like this, he said, going up to the piece 00:16:28.290 --> 00:16:30.480 align:middle line:84% and giving it a good wrap with his knuckles. 00:16:30.480 --> 00:16:35.490 align:middle line:84% Daddy, I cried out an alarm at his brazen act of philistinism. 00:16:35.490 --> 00:16:37.620 align:middle line:84% Steel, he said, and I think he would have said it 00:16:37.620 --> 00:16:39.750 align:middle line:84% whether I was standing there or not, 00:16:39.750 --> 00:16:43.890 align:middle line:84% we're both lovers of steel and structure. 00:16:43.890 --> 00:16:45.790 align:middle line:90% This wasn't exactly true. 00:16:45.790 --> 00:16:47.370 align:middle line:90% I liked to work with steel. 00:16:47.370 --> 00:16:49.170 align:middle line:84% It gave me confidence to put a torch 00:16:49.170 --> 00:16:51.300 align:middle line:84% to those big sheets of metal, splashing 00:16:51.300 --> 00:16:54.030 align:middle line:84% sparks about with the alacrity of a welder on a bridge high 00:16:54.030 --> 00:16:55.590 align:middle line:90% above the New York docks. 00:16:55.590 --> 00:16:58.440 align:middle line:90% But I didn't love steel. 00:16:58.440 --> 00:17:01.530 align:middle line:84% I couldn't love anything until Michael came along 00:17:01.530 --> 00:17:07.480 align:middle line:84% and we began moving West on those tires supplied 00:17:07.480 --> 00:17:10.510 align:middle line:90% by Cissy, his mother. 00:17:10.510 --> 00:17:13.780 align:middle line:84% So off you go, she said, with a wave of her red-knuckled hand 00:17:13.780 --> 00:17:16.060 align:middle line:84% as we went out the door of her little brick house 00:17:16.060 --> 00:17:19.390 align:middle line:84% on Washington Avenue in Albany that we'd 00:17:19.390 --> 00:17:21.849 align:middle line:84% swung by on our way out of Vermont to show her the tires 00:17:21.849 --> 00:17:23.470 align:middle line:90% and to thank her once again. 00:17:23.470 --> 00:17:25.180 align:middle line:84% We'll bring you back some red dust 00:17:25.180 --> 00:17:27.968 align:middle line:84% or whatever it is they have out there, mom, Michael said. 00:17:27.968 --> 00:17:30.010 align:middle line:84% She's never been West of Buffalo, he turned to me 00:17:30.010 --> 00:17:30.940 align:middle line:90% and explained. 00:17:30.940 --> 00:17:32.867 align:middle line:84% Rochester, she said by way of correction, 00:17:32.867 --> 00:17:34.450 align:middle line:84% though I used to hear a lot of stories 00:17:34.450 --> 00:17:36.790 align:middle line:84% about that place out there and it's all red dust 00:17:36.790 --> 00:17:38.920 align:middle line:84% and skies the color of a turquoise stone 00:17:38.920 --> 00:17:43.050 align:middle line:84% and air so clear you can't even see it, that's what I've heard. 00:17:43.050 --> 00:17:45.060 align:middle line:84% You've heard so much about it, Michael said, 00:17:45.060 --> 00:17:46.830 align:middle line:84% maybe you ought to come with us, mom. 00:17:46.830 --> 00:17:49.410 align:middle line:84% Oh, me, she said, no, no, it's not for me. 00:17:49.410 --> 00:17:51.390 align:middle line:84% I'm just a girl from Washington County who fell 00:17:51.390 --> 00:17:53.460 align:middle line:90% into some interesting luck. 00:17:53.460 --> 00:17:55.410 align:middle line:84% She leaned toward her son who stood next to me 00:17:55.410 --> 00:17:57.540 align:middle line:84% on the little stoop and kissed him on the cheek. 00:17:57.540 --> 00:18:01.770 align:middle line:84% You, Michael, you go, and take your Amy who 00:18:01.770 --> 00:18:04.490 align:middle line:90% will be the new Mrs. Guillen. 00:18:04.490 --> 00:18:06.380 align:middle line:84% I blushed and reached for her hand, 00:18:06.380 --> 00:18:08.960 align:middle line:84% feeling much more horrible about lying to her 00:18:08.960 --> 00:18:11.390 align:middle line:84% than I did to my own parents about our situation. 00:18:11.390 --> 00:18:14.090 align:middle line:84% But Michael didn't want us to get married just yet, he said, 00:18:14.090 --> 00:18:16.730 align:middle line:84% and I didn't want to push him too hard, 00:18:16.730 --> 00:18:20.270 align:middle line:84% though I had a little surprise for him. 00:18:20.270 --> 00:18:22.010 align:middle line:84% I'm going to keep my own name, I said, 00:18:22.010 --> 00:18:23.580 align:middle line:90% it's been mine for so long. 00:18:23.580 --> 00:18:25.610 align:middle line:84% Don't apologize for it, Cissy said, 00:18:25.610 --> 00:18:27.890 align:middle line:84% we're not so particular with names in this household, 00:18:27.890 --> 00:18:28.620 align:middle line:90% are we, Michael? 00:18:28.620 --> 00:18:31.400 align:middle line:84% After all, the boy's got my name not his father's. 00:18:31.400 --> 00:18:33.290 align:middle line:84% OK, mom, that's goodbye then for now, 00:18:33.290 --> 00:18:35.870 align:middle line:84% Michael said and tugged me from his mother 00:18:35.870 --> 00:18:37.040 align:middle line:90% and led me to the curb. 00:18:37.040 --> 00:18:38.330 align:middle line:90% Bye, I called after her. 00:18:38.330 --> 00:18:40.540 align:middle line:90% Goodbye, my darling, she said. 00:18:40.540 --> 00:18:43.040 align:middle line:84% You shouldn't have been so short with her just then, I said. 00:18:43.040 --> 00:18:45.050 align:middle line:84% Michael gave me a look I'd never seen before 00:18:45.050 --> 00:18:47.397 align:middle line:84% and started up the engine with a vengeance. 00:18:47.397 --> 00:18:49.730 align:middle line:84% He threw the truck into reverse and we lurched backward, 00:18:49.730 --> 00:18:51.363 align:middle line:84% nearly banging into the car behind us. 00:18:51.363 --> 00:18:53.780 align:middle line:84% I know that you don't want to get married, but at least be 00:18:53.780 --> 00:18:57.230 align:middle line:84% careful, I said, you're driving for three of us now. 00:18:57.230 --> 00:19:00.650 align:middle line:84% His mother was waving furiously from the curb as we drove off, 00:19:00.650 --> 00:19:03.320 align:middle line:84% rubber burning in the already thick Albany air. 00:19:03.320 --> 00:19:04.100 align:middle line:90% Three? 00:19:04.100 --> 00:19:07.465 align:middle line:84% He said, holding the wheel as though it were a weapon. 00:19:07.465 --> 00:19:08.840 align:middle line:84% It was then that I explained what 00:19:08.840 --> 00:19:11.257 align:middle line:84% I've been planning to tell him after we'd been on the road 00:19:11.257 --> 00:19:14.360 align:middle line:84% a while, finding perhaps some lovely romantic place for it, 00:19:14.360 --> 00:19:16.508 align:middle line:84% wherever that place out there might be. 00:19:16.508 --> 00:19:18.050 align:middle line:84% You're joking, he said, you're trying 00:19:18.050 --> 00:19:21.350 align:middle line:90% to fool around with my brain. 00:19:21.350 --> 00:19:22.850 align:middle line:84% No, Michael, I said, in a voice that 00:19:22.850 --> 00:19:24.892 align:middle line:84% sounded to me quite strange as though it belonged 00:19:24.892 --> 00:19:26.540 align:middle line:84% to someone I had just met, I'm going 00:19:26.540 --> 00:19:28.422 align:middle line:90% to bear you a little Cross. 00:19:28.422 --> 00:19:29.750 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:19:29.750 --> 00:19:30.920 align:middle line:90% That's her joke not mine. 00:19:30.920 --> 00:19:35.740 align:middle line:90% 00:19:35.740 --> 00:19:36.730 align:middle line:90% The road! 00:19:36.730 --> 00:19:37.420 align:middle line:90% The road! 00:19:37.420 --> 00:19:40.540 align:middle line:84% Stanley Hyman shouted to us in lagan lit class one morning, 00:19:40.540 --> 00:19:43.540 align:middle line:84% all life is a road, and then he smacked his hands together 00:19:43.540 --> 00:19:46.090 align:middle line:84% and began shouting out that Ray Charles tune, hit 00:19:46.090 --> 00:19:49.540 align:middle line:84% the road, Jack and don't you come back no more, no more, no 00:19:49.540 --> 00:19:50.440 align:middle line:90% more, no more. 00:19:50.440 --> 00:19:54.410 align:middle line:84% Hit the road, Jack and don't you come back no more. 00:19:54.410 --> 00:19:57.260 align:middle line:84% The myth man, my Michael called Stanley and practically sat 00:19:57.260 --> 00:20:00.260 align:middle line:84% at his feet like a disciple, sometimes even showing up 00:20:00.260 --> 00:20:02.507 align:middle line:84% in class and demonstrating by his comments 00:20:02.507 --> 00:20:05.090 align:middle line:84% that he'd read everything on the list with more care than most 00:20:05.090 --> 00:20:06.980 align:middle line:90% of the students on the roster. 00:20:06.980 --> 00:20:09.560 align:middle line:84% If it was unusual for a working class boy from New York 00:20:09.560 --> 00:20:12.050 align:middle line:84% state to drop in on classes at Bennington 00:20:12.050 --> 00:20:15.260 align:middle line:84% and engage us girls in long discussions about Lord Raglan's 00:20:15.260 --> 00:20:18.050 align:middle line:84% The Hero, Stanley's favorite book and Freud and Frazer 00:20:18.050 --> 00:20:19.130 align:middle line:90% and Marx. 00:20:19.130 --> 00:20:21.590 align:middle line:84% If it was unusual, we didn't know it, 00:20:21.590 --> 00:20:24.680 align:middle line:84% even when he prefaced the things he said with, well, 00:20:24.680 --> 00:20:27.290 align:middle line:84% hey, I'm the bastard son of a Manhattan photographer 00:20:27.290 --> 00:20:30.110 align:middle line:84% and a housemaid from Cossayuna, New York, but the way I see it. 00:20:30.110 --> 00:20:32.900 align:middle line:84% And if this was unusual, we didn't know it. 00:20:32.900 --> 00:20:36.350 align:middle line:84% This was Bennington and anything could happen. 00:20:36.350 --> 00:20:38.990 align:middle line:84% As you already may have figured out, some of it happened to me. 00:20:38.990 --> 00:20:40.700 align:middle line:90% Michael, I mean. 00:20:40.700 --> 00:20:42.980 align:middle line:84% He was painting a lot but also working outside 00:20:42.980 --> 00:20:45.400 align:middle line:90% on some small metal pieces. 00:20:45.400 --> 00:20:48.160 align:middle line:84% One night, I saw him as I came out of the painting studio. 00:20:48.160 --> 00:20:49.600 align:middle line:90% He was wearing goggles. 00:20:49.600 --> 00:20:52.850 align:middle line:84% The sparks were flying and I thought to myself, 00:20:52.850 --> 00:20:57.270 align:middle line:84% this is some man, this is some man. 00:20:57.270 --> 00:21:00.150 align:middle line:84% So I guess I have to admit that I'm a coward or maybe just 00:21:00.150 --> 00:21:03.600 align:middle line:84% a realist because I never told him about me and Stanley. 00:21:03.600 --> 00:21:06.850 align:middle line:84% Not that it was more than a tiny little fling. 00:21:06.850 --> 00:21:08.500 align:middle line:84% Michael would have died, or worse, he 00:21:08.500 --> 00:21:10.180 align:middle line:84% would have brought it up to me a lot. 00:21:10.180 --> 00:21:12.047 align:middle line:84% I remember hearing my mother's whining voice 00:21:12.047 --> 00:21:13.630 align:middle line:84% all through my childhood about a thing 00:21:13.630 --> 00:21:15.085 align:middle line:84% my father had gotten involved in. 00:21:15.085 --> 00:21:16.960 align:middle line:84% And it might have been one night or 10 years, 00:21:16.960 --> 00:21:20.170 align:middle line:84% it didn't matter because my mother never let it drop. 00:21:20.170 --> 00:21:22.390 align:middle line:84% Stanley, stumbling in drunk to my room, 00:21:22.390 --> 00:21:24.250 align:middle line:90% trying to take off his pants. 00:21:24.250 --> 00:21:25.150 align:middle line:90% I worshipped him. 00:21:25.150 --> 00:21:29.030 align:middle line:84% He was so smart and sweet and tough all at once. 00:21:29.030 --> 00:21:32.048 align:middle line:84% I helped him off with his trousers and let him do it. 00:21:32.048 --> 00:21:33.590 align:middle line:84% I knew about half a dozen other girls 00:21:33.590 --> 00:21:35.870 align:middle line:84% who'd had the same experience, and it was exactly 00:21:35.870 --> 00:21:38.240 align:middle line:84% the way they described it when they talked about it, 00:21:38.240 --> 00:21:40.310 align:middle line:84% a little incestuous, a little bit 00:21:40.310 --> 00:21:42.590 align:middle line:84% like a visit from the family doctor. 00:21:42.590 --> 00:21:44.990 align:middle line:84% Jesus and Moses, he shouted when he came, 00:21:44.990 --> 00:21:49.070 align:middle line:90% oh my god, Jesus and Moses. 00:21:49.070 --> 00:21:50.870 align:middle line:84% So when as we were driving through Illinois 00:21:50.870 --> 00:21:53.210 align:middle line:84% on our way to New Mexico to see Michael's aunt Ava who 00:21:53.210 --> 00:21:56.000 align:middle line:84% had moved out there to paint before Michael was born 00:21:56.000 --> 00:21:58.550 align:middle line:84% and he suddenly broke out into a war room, honked the horn 00:21:58.550 --> 00:22:00.380 align:middle line:90% and shouted, hey, I got it. 00:22:00.380 --> 00:22:02.780 align:middle line:84% If it's a boy, we'll name him Stanley. 00:22:02.780 --> 00:22:06.025 align:middle line:84% I nearly went into convulsions, though I 00:22:06.025 --> 00:22:07.400 align:middle line:84% managed to recover quickly enough 00:22:07.400 --> 00:22:11.150 align:middle line:84% to say I didn't think we ought to saddle any kid with a burden 00:22:11.150 --> 00:22:12.770 align:middle line:90% of a funny name like that. 00:22:12.770 --> 00:22:15.440 align:middle line:84% He's not funny to me, Michael said, he's a great man. 00:22:15.440 --> 00:22:17.660 align:middle line:84% Him and Paul Feeley, they're my father's, you know. 00:22:17.660 --> 00:22:20.730 align:middle line:84% They really are the fathers I never knew. 00:22:20.730 --> 00:22:23.245 align:middle line:84% We were zooming through cornfields near the Iowa border 00:22:23.245 --> 00:22:25.620 align:middle line:84% and I couldn't really pretend that something fabulous lay 00:22:25.620 --> 00:22:26.070 align:middle line:90% outside. 00:22:26.070 --> 00:22:27.820 align:middle line:84% The truck window is fabulous enough anyway 00:22:27.820 --> 00:22:29.730 align:middle line:84% for me to turn around and stare at it. 00:22:29.730 --> 00:22:31.680 align:middle line:84% But I wanted to hide the deep blush 00:22:31.680 --> 00:22:33.540 align:middle line:84% that I could feel as heat on my cheeks 00:22:33.540 --> 00:22:35.010 align:middle line:84% and the thought of having made love 00:22:35.010 --> 00:22:38.050 align:middle line:90% to Michael's adoptive father. 00:22:38.050 --> 00:22:39.550 align:middle line:84% I stopped blushing after a while, 00:22:39.550 --> 00:22:41.380 align:middle line:84% but the cornfields ran on and then 00:22:41.380 --> 00:22:44.770 align:middle line:84% the grain fields of Nebraska receding to the horizon broken 00:22:44.770 --> 00:22:47.500 align:middle line:84% by little farm towns and bordered by straight roads 00:22:47.500 --> 00:22:50.650 align:middle line:84% and railroad lines along one of which Michael's aunt Ava, as he 00:22:50.650 --> 00:22:52.850 align:middle line:90% called her, had grown up. 00:22:52.850 --> 00:22:54.350 align:middle line:84% However, we didn't know that then. 00:22:54.350 --> 00:22:55.767 align:middle line:84% We didn't know much more about her 00:22:55.767 --> 00:22:58.490 align:middle line:84% than the few things his mother Cissy had told us. 00:22:58.490 --> 00:23:02.000 align:middle line:84% We even had the idea that Ava and Albert Stigma, that's 00:23:02.000 --> 00:23:04.400 align:middle line:84% her elderly photographer husband, 00:23:04.400 --> 00:23:06.197 align:middle line:84% had divorced when Michael was conceived, 00:23:06.197 --> 00:23:07.280 align:middle line:90% not that it mattered much. 00:23:07.280 --> 00:23:08.010 align:middle line:90% Not to him. 00:23:08.010 --> 00:23:10.130 align:middle line:84% He loved that, being the bastard son. 00:23:10.130 --> 00:23:12.140 align:middle line:84% Not many men would, but Michael was 00:23:12.140 --> 00:23:15.710 align:middle line:84% special, a thing which had both its good side and its bad. 00:23:15.710 --> 00:23:18.620 align:middle line:84% And I had the worrisome feeling only women know 00:23:18.620 --> 00:23:20.870 align:middle line:84% what it's like, that the baby might bring out as much 00:23:20.870 --> 00:23:23.608 align:middle line:84% of the negative side of him as the positive. 00:23:23.608 --> 00:23:26.150 align:middle line:84% First of all, no matter what we told his mother or my parents 00:23:26.150 --> 00:23:27.620 align:middle line:84% about our intentions, we still weren't 00:23:27.620 --> 00:23:29.030 align:middle line:84% married, which had been all right for me 00:23:29.030 --> 00:23:30.080 align:middle line:90% before I got pregnant. 00:23:30.080 --> 00:23:32.038 align:middle line:84% But riding along the interstate with the weight 00:23:32.038 --> 00:23:34.935 align:middle line:84% of the new child in my belly or imagining the little reed 00:23:34.935 --> 00:23:36.560 align:middle line:84% that he was at that stage, as a weight, 00:23:36.560 --> 00:23:38.690 align:middle line:84% I wondered if we ought to break this chain of birth 00:23:38.690 --> 00:23:40.760 align:middle line:84% out of wedlock that Michael sometimes reveled in 00:23:40.760 --> 00:23:42.380 align:middle line:84% and stop in one of these small towns 00:23:42.380 --> 00:23:45.170 align:middle line:84% and find a justice of the peace and get married. 00:23:45.170 --> 00:23:48.260 align:middle line:84% Beautiful, Michael said, and I was pleased with his reaction 00:23:48.260 --> 00:23:48.950 align:middle line:90% to my idea. 00:23:48.950 --> 00:23:51.890 align:middle line:84% But then he suggested we wait until we got to New Mexico 00:23:51.890 --> 00:23:54.290 align:middle line:84% because we'd have to take blood tests and all 00:23:54.290 --> 00:23:55.520 align:middle line:90% that, he reminded me. 00:23:55.520 --> 00:23:57.710 align:middle line:90% I was more than satisfied. 00:23:57.710 --> 00:23:59.390 align:middle line:84% But around the time we turned South 00:23:59.390 --> 00:24:00.900 align:middle line:84% and crossed the border of Colorado, 00:24:00.900 --> 00:24:02.480 align:middle line:90% he was already of another mind. 00:24:02.480 --> 00:24:05.450 align:middle line:84% Amy, he said, taking my hand and squeezing hard, 00:24:05.450 --> 00:24:07.720 align:middle line:84% I know this is going to sound crazy. 00:24:07.720 --> 00:24:10.220 align:middle line:84% It's just,you know, we don't have to rush into this marriage 00:24:10.220 --> 00:24:11.845 align:middle line:84% thing just because we're having a baby. 00:24:11.845 --> 00:24:14.660 align:middle line:84% I mean, I spent all my life so far being a bastard 00:24:14.660 --> 00:24:16.280 align:middle line:90% and it hasn't been all that bad. 00:24:16.280 --> 00:24:18.590 align:middle line:84% Hey, and you know Stanley pointed this out 00:24:18.590 --> 00:24:21.050 align:middle line:84% to me, how in Shakespeare the bad guys, the bastards, 00:24:21.050 --> 00:24:22.370 align:middle line:90% get all of the good poetry. 00:24:22.370 --> 00:24:25.920 align:middle line:90% The gods stand up for bastards. 00:24:25.920 --> 00:24:28.710 align:middle line:84% Oh, Michael, I said, feeling a sigh rise within me, 00:24:28.710 --> 00:24:31.770 align:middle line:90% you're such a stitch. 00:24:31.770 --> 00:24:34.140 align:middle line:84% I leaned over and lay my head on his right knee, 00:24:34.140 --> 00:24:37.410 align:middle line:84% feeling the power of his leg as worked the gas pedal. 00:24:37.410 --> 00:24:40.260 align:middle line:84% In a moment, he pulled over onto the shoulder of the highway 00:24:40.260 --> 00:24:43.230 align:middle line:84% and in the next, we scrambled out of the cab 00:24:43.230 --> 00:24:47.360 align:middle line:84% and into the truck bed and into his bed roll that 00:24:47.360 --> 00:24:49.770 align:middle line:84% still reeked with the oils and resins in the studio back 00:24:49.770 --> 00:24:51.120 align:middle line:90% in Vermont. 00:24:51.120 --> 00:24:54.630 align:middle line:84% You could hear the cars roar past on the highway. 00:24:54.630 --> 00:24:57.450 align:middle line:84% Nice girl from Northern Virginia, college educated, 00:24:57.450 --> 00:25:00.120 align:middle line:84% pregnant now making love in the back of a truck 00:25:00.120 --> 00:25:02.880 align:middle line:84% parked off the interstate in Northeastern Colorado. 00:25:02.880 --> 00:25:07.500 align:middle line:84% And then again, as she crossed the border into New Mexico. 00:25:07.500 --> 00:25:10.650 align:middle line:84% Michael, Michael lay back just after having 00:25:10.650 --> 00:25:12.900 align:middle line:84% finished with me that second time and said, Christ, 00:25:12.900 --> 00:25:13.890 align:middle line:90% do you realize? 00:25:13.890 --> 00:25:14.610 align:middle line:90% Realize what? 00:25:14.610 --> 00:25:16.717 align:middle line:84% My god, he said, and then closed his eyes 00:25:16.717 --> 00:25:18.300 align:middle line:84% and made an odd sound with his tongue. 00:25:18.300 --> 00:25:20.153 align:middle line:90% Michael what is it? 00:25:20.153 --> 00:25:21.320 align:middle line:90% We're nearly there, he said. 00:25:21.320 --> 00:25:21.860 align:middle line:90% I know. 00:25:21.860 --> 00:25:23.990 align:middle line:84% I reached over and touched a hand to his cheek. 00:25:23.990 --> 00:25:25.400 align:middle line:90% Maybe we should go back. 00:25:25.400 --> 00:25:26.048 align:middle line:90% Why? 00:25:26.048 --> 00:25:26.840 align:middle line:90% I don't understand. 00:25:26.840 --> 00:25:29.313 align:middle line:84% Well, what if what-- what she's just some crazy old lady? 00:25:29.313 --> 00:25:30.980 align:middle line:84% He took a deep breath and I could almost 00:25:30.980 --> 00:25:34.025 align:middle line:84% hear his lungs filling up as much with fear as with air. 00:25:34.025 --> 00:25:35.900 align:middle line:84% What if-- what if she doesn't want to see us? 00:25:35.900 --> 00:25:37.700 align:middle line:84% What if my mother is making this all up. 00:25:37.700 --> 00:25:38.240 align:middle line:90% Michael! 00:25:38.240 --> 00:25:39.810 align:middle line:84% What if she-- what is she's mean as hell? 00:25:39.810 --> 00:25:41.900 align:middle line:84% What about that and we've spent all this money coming out 00:25:41.900 --> 00:25:43.470 align:middle line:90% here just to get turned around? 00:25:43.470 --> 00:25:46.370 align:middle line:84% It's not for nothing, I said, sliding up alongside him 00:25:46.370 --> 00:25:48.230 align:middle line:84% so that my lips were even with his ear. 00:25:48.230 --> 00:25:50.360 align:middle line:84% We've had some fun and it's beautiful out here. 00:25:50.360 --> 00:25:52.310 align:middle line:90% Maybe we'll even stay. 00:25:52.310 --> 00:25:55.010 align:middle line:84% That sat him up, looking kind of sweet and silly as he looked 00:25:55.010 --> 00:25:57.260 align:middle line:90% out over the rocky landscape. 00:25:57.260 --> 00:26:00.320 align:middle line:84% I can't stay out here, he said, I've got my work. 00:26:00.320 --> 00:26:01.730 align:middle line:90% I can't stay anywhere. 00:26:01.730 --> 00:26:03.860 align:middle line:90% I'm going to be a father. 00:26:03.860 --> 00:26:07.280 align:middle line:84% Oh, Michael, don't worry, I said, in my first official act 00:26:07.280 --> 00:26:10.370 align:middle line:84% as a mother while cradling him in my arms. 00:26:10.370 --> 00:26:13.010 align:middle line:84% His mood lightened, though, the closer we got to Santa Fe. 00:26:13.010 --> 00:26:15.560 align:middle line:84% Whose wouldn't given the land around us? 00:26:15.560 --> 00:26:18.470 align:middle line:84% The sky, he kept saying in a voice filled with real wonder. 00:26:18.470 --> 00:26:20.660 align:middle line:84% Look at that sky and there, look, the mountains, 00:26:20.660 --> 00:26:24.440 align:middle line:84% the colors, all the way to Santa Fe and beyond. 00:26:24.440 --> 00:26:26.720 align:middle line:84% And that beyond, I have to admit it got to me as well, 00:26:26.720 --> 00:26:28.840 align:middle line:84% despite the fact that the baby growing inside me 00:26:28.840 --> 00:26:31.210 align:middle line:84% was just about everything at that time. 00:26:31.210 --> 00:26:33.850 align:middle line:84% Having grown up in the demure and manicured landscape 00:26:33.850 --> 00:26:36.220 align:middle line:84% of Virginia and gotten something resembling an education 00:26:36.220 --> 00:26:38.050 align:middle line:84% in the tempered mountains of Vermont, 00:26:38.050 --> 00:26:39.970 align:middle line:84% my notion of height and distance left 00:26:39.970 --> 00:26:41.698 align:middle line:84% much to be desired, though I might 00:26:41.698 --> 00:26:43.240 align:middle line:84% have lived something like a full life 00:26:43.240 --> 00:26:44.980 align:middle line:90% without ever having known this. 00:26:44.980 --> 00:26:47.770 align:middle line:84% Space out here resembled the ragged edge of a painting 00:26:47.770 --> 00:26:49.660 align:middle line:84% with all the lines and colors bleeding off 00:26:49.660 --> 00:26:52.450 align:middle line:84% into some infinity, the presence of which we in the East 00:26:52.450 --> 00:26:55.870 align:middle line:84% could easily hide from but which nevertheless was always 00:26:55.870 --> 00:26:58.727 align:middle line:84% present, always lurking about the wings. 00:26:58.727 --> 00:27:01.310 align:middle line:84% When we stopped in a village a few miles off the main highway, 00:27:01.310 --> 00:27:03.740 align:middle line:84% Michael ate a Mexican lunch he repeatedly declared 00:27:03.740 --> 00:27:06.350 align:middle line:84% was the hottest meal he'd ever had. 00:27:06.350 --> 00:27:09.440 align:middle line:84% I couldn't do that to my baby, so I nibbled on bland tortillas 00:27:09.440 --> 00:27:11.150 align:middle line:90% and drank a little milk. 00:27:11.150 --> 00:27:14.120 align:middle line:84% The view from the patio was a feast in itself. 00:27:14.120 --> 00:27:16.610 align:middle line:84% The mesa's leading away from the Eastern horizon 00:27:16.610 --> 00:27:19.220 align:middle line:84% seemed like some kind of topiary made of stone. 00:27:19.220 --> 00:27:20.900 align:middle line:84% But the best view for me, of which 00:27:20.900 --> 00:27:23.750 align:middle line:84% we saw more and more as we got closer to our destination, 00:27:23.750 --> 00:27:26.330 align:middle line:84% was the ancient seabed that lay to the West 00:27:26.330 --> 00:27:27.560 align:middle line:90% toward the mountains. 00:27:27.560 --> 00:27:29.780 align:middle line:84% Here and there we could see dust devils spinning up 00:27:29.780 --> 00:27:31.340 align:middle line:90% out of the dry desert floor. 00:27:31.340 --> 00:27:33.290 align:middle line:84% Now and then we passed a car or truck 00:27:33.290 --> 00:27:36.620 align:middle line:84% driven by a brown faced man with long, dark hair. 00:27:36.620 --> 00:27:38.300 align:middle line:90% Many signs were in Spanish. 00:27:38.300 --> 00:27:41.630 align:middle line:84% My breathing slightly altered by the climb toward the sky. 00:27:41.630 --> 00:27:44.240 align:middle line:84% A sign here for a reservation, a turn there 00:27:44.240 --> 00:27:46.760 align:middle line:84% and we were passing through a crossroads, a gas 00:27:46.760 --> 00:27:49.160 align:middle line:84% station, a small weathered Adobe general store 00:27:49.160 --> 00:27:52.310 align:middle line:84% and on toward the mountains again, climbing slightly. 00:27:52.310 --> 00:27:53.990 align:middle line:84% Suddenly, the sign bearing the name 00:27:53.990 --> 00:27:56.600 align:middle line:84% we'd seen on the map, the road dipped into a little bend 00:27:56.600 --> 00:27:58.250 align:middle line:90% at a dry riverbed. 00:27:58.250 --> 00:28:00.128 align:middle line:84% There was a turn to the Southwest, 00:28:00.128 --> 00:28:01.670 align:middle line:84% and within minutes we were rolling up 00:28:01.670 --> 00:28:06.110 align:middle line:84% a small ravine toward the old ranch house and outbuildings. 00:28:06.110 --> 00:28:10.820 align:middle line:84% Out of the cab, stretch toward the sky, blink at the odd sun, 00:28:10.820 --> 00:28:14.540 align:middle line:84% a strangely white nearly translucent brightness, 00:28:14.540 --> 00:28:16.400 align:middle line:90% a gasp at the altitude. 00:28:16.400 --> 00:28:19.280 align:middle line:84% Michael kisses me on my dry and cracked lips. 00:28:19.280 --> 00:28:22.850 align:middle line:84% Our limbs creak from sitting for so many days. 00:28:22.850 --> 00:28:24.950 align:middle line:84% We walk up to the house, up onto the stoop, 00:28:24.950 --> 00:28:27.290 align:middle line:84% knock at the striated black wooden door. 00:28:27.290 --> 00:28:28.280 align:middle line:90% Knock again. 00:28:28.280 --> 00:28:29.720 align:middle line:90% No answer. 00:28:29.720 --> 00:28:31.520 align:middle line:84% We walk around to the side of the house, 00:28:31.520 --> 00:28:33.020 align:middle line:84% peering through a large window that 00:28:33.020 --> 00:28:34.790 align:middle line:84% takes southern light, see its counterpart 00:28:34.790 --> 00:28:36.470 align:middle line:90% across the room to the North. 00:28:36.470 --> 00:28:40.700 align:middle line:84% A desk, books, rocks, on the wall, a large steer skull, 00:28:40.700 --> 00:28:42.720 align:middle line:90% dried flowers within it. 00:28:42.720 --> 00:28:46.160 align:middle line:84% We walk along the Adobe corral wall behind the house. 00:28:46.160 --> 00:28:48.080 align:middle line:84% All still, except for the sound of our feet 00:28:48.080 --> 00:28:50.430 align:middle line:90% in the dust and my breathing. 00:28:50.430 --> 00:28:53.270 align:middle line:84% Another black door, this one slightly ajar. 00:28:53.270 --> 00:28:56.400 align:middle line:84% We enter the corral, large wooden barn into the rear, 00:28:56.400 --> 00:28:58.490 align:middle line:90% the door open to the North end. 00:28:58.490 --> 00:29:00.080 align:middle line:90% Odd odors on the air. 00:29:00.080 --> 00:29:01.820 align:middle line:90% A slight resin tang. 00:29:01.820 --> 00:29:03.530 align:middle line:90% Dusty native light. 00:29:03.530 --> 00:29:04.620 align:middle line:90% No sound. 00:29:04.620 --> 00:29:05.960 align:middle line:90% Smell of oily wind. 00:29:05.960 --> 00:29:07.260 align:middle line:90% Wind shifts. 00:29:07.260 --> 00:29:10.810 align:middle line:90% No sweet streak of scent. 00:29:10.810 --> 00:29:13.870 align:middle line:84% A dog barks in the distance, or coyote. 00:29:13.870 --> 00:29:15.730 align:middle line:84% Now the barn, where inside, a shadow 00:29:15.730 --> 00:29:17.860 align:middle line:84% hovers like a large pool of dark water. 00:29:17.860 --> 00:29:19.690 align:middle line:90% The very air turned liquid. 00:29:19.690 --> 00:29:22.690 align:middle line:84% A table covered with tubes of paint, small orange rocks, 00:29:22.690 --> 00:29:26.590 align:middle line:84% bones, feathers, dried flowers, a bird's nest. 00:29:26.590 --> 00:29:30.800 align:middle line:84% Look at this, Michael says, holding up a large dried fish. 00:29:30.800 --> 00:29:33.080 align:middle line:84% Then we turn at a sound outside the barn, 00:29:33.080 --> 00:29:35.510 align:middle line:84% look to the Adobe wall across from the open doorway 00:29:35.510 --> 00:29:38.630 align:middle line:84% and blink, and see a slight weathered figure in jeans 00:29:38.630 --> 00:29:41.330 align:middle line:84% and tattered white shirt, an old man. 00:29:41.330 --> 00:29:44.510 align:middle line:84% No, a slight old woman, stick in hand. 00:29:44.510 --> 00:29:47.030 align:middle line:90% No, a long thin brush. 00:29:47.030 --> 00:29:49.220 align:middle line:84% Standing perfectly still as a lizard 00:29:49.220 --> 00:29:51.230 align:middle line:84% might, as though she herself might 00:29:51.230 --> 00:29:54.290 align:middle line:84% have been painted on the wall, listening intently, 00:29:54.290 --> 00:29:57.920 align:middle line:84% not to the dog or coyote, not to the noise of the wind 00:29:57.920 --> 00:30:01.100 align:middle line:84% like the soles of feet brushing across the soft stone, 00:30:01.100 --> 00:30:04.100 align:middle line:84% not to my cry of surprise, not to Michael's 00:30:04.100 --> 00:30:07.310 align:middle line:84% whispered breathing, but I could almost swear it, 00:30:07.310 --> 00:30:11.570 align:middle line:84% as if she were listening to the sound of the tiny gurglings 00:30:11.570 --> 00:30:13.040 align:middle line:90% of my child within. 00:30:13.040 --> 00:30:15.855 align:middle line:90% 00:30:15.855 --> 00:30:16.837 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:30:16.837 --> 00:30:17.520 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:30:17.520 --> 00:30:23.890 align:middle line:90% 00:30:23.890 --> 00:30:31.405 align:middle line:84% I'll just read one more very brief section, Four Choruses 00:30:31.405 --> 00:30:37.700 align:middle line:84% as I call them, four voices of some women 00:30:37.700 --> 00:30:40.750 align:middle line:90% who appear in the book. 00:30:40.750 --> 00:30:47.050 align:middle line:84% The first is spoken by Eve, the ghost 00:30:47.050 --> 00:30:49.210 align:middle line:84% of the stillborn twin sister of Aiba 00:30:49.210 --> 00:30:52.900 align:middle line:84% who haunts her throughout the book. 00:30:52.900 --> 00:30:58.590 align:middle line:84% And then Louise Bolden, Aiba's and Robert's mother. 00:30:58.590 --> 00:31:01.400 align:middle line:90% 00:31:01.400 --> 00:31:04.100 align:middle line:90% And I'll explain the rest. 00:31:04.100 --> 00:31:07.310 align:middle line:90% Eve, tell me about color. 00:31:07.310 --> 00:31:09.980 align:middle line:84% Tell me all the colors you've seen within your eye 00:31:09.980 --> 00:31:10.910 align:middle line:90% and without. 00:31:10.910 --> 00:31:14.510 align:middle line:84% Tell me about blue, blue without cease. 00:31:14.510 --> 00:31:17.720 align:middle line:84% And red, tell me of the nature of red, 00:31:17.720 --> 00:31:21.740 align:middle line:84% its fiery menstrual challenge, its lingering embers. 00:31:21.740 --> 00:31:24.320 align:middle line:84% Tell me about the ocean depths of green. 00:31:24.320 --> 00:31:28.790 align:middle line:84% Tell me green and pearl, off-white pearl, 00:31:28.790 --> 00:31:30.350 align:middle line:90% cream of petal. 00:31:30.350 --> 00:31:33.380 align:middle line:90% Green bluestem and gray stone. 00:31:33.380 --> 00:31:35.240 align:middle line:90% Gray, gray stone. 00:31:35.240 --> 00:31:36.290 align:middle line:90% Ocher rock. 00:31:36.290 --> 00:31:37.610 align:middle line:90% Tortilla Earth. 00:31:37.610 --> 00:31:39.020 align:middle line:90% Desert orange. 00:31:39.020 --> 00:31:42.020 align:middle line:84% Slap of yellow wildflower in the eye. 00:31:42.020 --> 00:31:45.290 align:middle line:84% The come hither look of violet, lush of purple. 00:31:45.290 --> 00:31:47.660 align:middle line:90% Vermilion's odd assertion. 00:31:47.660 --> 00:31:51.170 align:middle line:84% Tell me the turquoise passage of winds shaping 00:31:51.170 --> 00:31:55.010 align:middle line:90% the pliable cloth of clouds. 00:31:55.010 --> 00:32:00.440 align:middle line:84% Louise Bolden, tell me about the white of absence, 00:32:00.440 --> 00:32:03.230 align:middle line:84% the black of presence, these shades. 00:32:03.230 --> 00:32:05.990 align:middle line:84% Tell me, tell me how water bleeds 00:32:05.990 --> 00:32:10.100 align:middle line:84% the colors across the space of vision, how tense the oil. 00:32:10.100 --> 00:32:13.340 align:middle line:84% Tell me of the sheen of cobalt, blue at rest 00:32:13.340 --> 00:32:15.860 align:middle line:90% and the flash of first crimson. 00:32:15.860 --> 00:32:21.420 align:middle line:84% The Garden of inside watered by the fluids of exterior shapes. 00:32:21.420 --> 00:32:25.320 align:middle line:84% Melissa Tree, and line two, speak of lines. 00:32:25.320 --> 00:32:28.050 align:middle line:84% The way a stretch of black moves across your eye 00:32:28.050 --> 00:32:30.510 align:middle line:84% and takes on the curvature of the Earth. 00:32:30.510 --> 00:32:32.940 align:middle line:84% Tell me of rock and rising hillside, 00:32:32.940 --> 00:32:35.130 align:middle line:90% mesa of mesquite and distance. 00:32:35.130 --> 00:32:38.400 align:middle line:84% Earth, dirt, the texture of stone underfoot, 00:32:38.400 --> 00:32:41.160 align:middle line:84% of air in the lungs, the weight of my breasts 00:32:41.160 --> 00:32:42.600 align:middle line:90% and arms upon the water. 00:32:42.600 --> 00:32:46.200 align:middle line:84% Tell me of the buoyancy of my body in this plane of mine 00:32:46.200 --> 00:32:48.840 align:middle line:84% and the flash flood that comes unawares upon me. 00:32:48.840 --> 00:32:51.660 align:middle line:84% Tell me, show me how oceans spill 00:32:51.660 --> 00:32:53.670 align:middle line:84% from the motion of your wrists and I 00:32:53.670 --> 00:32:56.040 align:middle line:84% will learn how to perfect this story, 00:32:56.040 --> 00:32:58.410 align:middle line:84% how to write it in ink made of seashells 00:32:58.410 --> 00:33:01.940 align:middle line:84% and painted on the bark of trees. 00:33:01.940 --> 00:33:07.110 align:middle line:84% Eve, I see by the light that you show me. 00:33:07.110 --> 00:33:09.360 align:middle line:84% I see what it is like to walk upon the water 00:33:09.360 --> 00:33:13.200 align:middle line:84% and continue on across the plane of years over the mountains. 00:33:13.200 --> 00:33:17.730 align:middle line:84% Sister, mother, daughter, oh, you give me hope. 00:33:17.730 --> 00:33:20.490 align:middle line:84% You give me promise that I might try and try. 00:33:20.490 --> 00:33:22.800 align:middle line:84% And if I fail, and if I fall back 00:33:22.800 --> 00:33:24.630 align:middle line:84% into the territory of darkness, at least 00:33:24.630 --> 00:33:27.510 align:middle line:84% I'll have had a glimpse of what lies beyond. 00:33:27.510 --> 00:33:31.530 align:middle line:84% Show me then if color has a sound and how line creates 00:33:31.530 --> 00:33:33.810 align:middle line:84% music, and if the shape of things 00:33:33.810 --> 00:33:38.010 align:middle line:84% takes on a shade visible near darkness, a waver and if light, 00:33:38.010 --> 00:33:41.800 align:middle line:84% if light is the old metaphor for infinity. 00:33:41.800 --> 00:33:44.940 align:middle line:84% And if color, if color is light given 00:33:44.940 --> 00:33:49.640 align:middle line:84% in the terms of the world, sucker me with this knowledge 00:33:49.640 --> 00:33:53.180 align:middle line:84% that when I awake from my dream I 00:33:53.180 --> 00:33:57.130 align:middle line:84% may know something other than before I slept. 00:33:57.130 --> 00:33:57.640 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:33:57.640 --> 00:34:01.126 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:34:01.126 --> 00:34:03.118 align:middle line:90% 00:34:03.118 --> 00:34:06.106 align:middle line:90% Thanks very much. 00:34:06.106 --> 00:34:07.102 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:34:07.102 --> 00:34:12.260 align:middle line:90% 00:34:12.260 --> 00:34:13.850 align:middle line:90% We invite you to have punch. 00:34:13.850 --> 00:34:18.798 align:middle line:84% If it's like George Mason punch, it's probably not champagne. 00:34:18.798 --> 00:34:21.090 align:middle line:84% But come and have punch and we'll talk out in the lobby 00:34:21.090 --> 00:34:23.790 align:middle line:90% too. 00:34:23.790 --> 00:34:27.140 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:34:27.140 --> 00:34:30.000 align:middle line:90%