WEBVTT

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I did want to, just because I
don't know the next time I'm

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going to get to be in Tucson.

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If there's ever, like,
an occasion for my life

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to flash before my eyes or
a montage made of my life,

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one of the moments
would be in Tucson.

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I came here in 2004.

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Just proposed to
my current wife,

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had no prospects
when I came here.

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This sounds so old, but
I picked up a telephone

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and I called Pima
Community College

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and I said, hi, I'm Andy
Grace, I'm a new poet in town.

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I would like to teach
at your school, can I?

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And from some dumb luck,
eventually that phone call

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led me to Meg Files, who
is in attendance tonight.

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Thank you so much,
Meg, for coming.

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And Meg, a great
supporter of all things

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poetry and creative writing,
hired me sight unseen.

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So I loved teaching at Pima.

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For some extra
money, I also taught,

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some of the longer
time Tucsonans

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will remember the
mall on Broadway,

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and they used to have--

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the woman who drove
me from the airport

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here is telling me that
that's empty at this point.

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But I used to have a Borders
Books, Borders on Broadway.

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And so I worked there part-time.

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And the whole time we were
here, there was this pressure.

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And I think that if there
are younger writers here,

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there are moments in
which you have a thing,

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but then you need the
next thing to happen

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and the doors are
closed and you're just

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waiting for that open door.

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So Meg opened the door
for me to be here.

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So now I needed the next
thing, especially since we

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were going to get married.

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So it was weighing on me.

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I was applying for everything.

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Everything was a no.

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And I remember this
particular day,

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I was alphabetizing Chilton
automotive guides at Borders,

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like, to do home mechanics.

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If you don't want to take your
car in, can fix it yourself.

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So I'm like, Ford, Mercury,
and I'm just thinking, like,

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what is my life?

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What am I doing with my life?

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What am I-- why did I propose if
I couldn't do my part of making

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money for the family?

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So I was catastrophizing.

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And I get this phone
call from my wife.

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And if you've ever
worked retail,

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that you can't just pick up a
phone when you're on the floor.

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So I was like, I'm just
going to let it go.

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And if it's important,
she'll call back.

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And she called back immediately.

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So I was like, OK,
something's up.

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So I asked for a break, I
go outside and I call her,

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and she's like, when I
would apply for things.

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Back then, we moved so
much that I would just

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list my mom's contact
info for stuff.

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And so my wife was
like, hey, your mom

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just called about a
voicemail that she got.

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Some Irish lady at Stanford
is calling about something,

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and they didn't know
what that meant.

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But I knew what that meant.

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And it meant that I had
got the Wallace Stegner

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Fellowship, which was like the
biggest long shot, Hail Mary

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that I had applied for, the
most competitive thing I applied

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for that I had written off.

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And so I had this moment
of just utter joy.

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And I look up, I I'd
been in the box store

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for so long, I forgot
about the outdoors.

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And I look up, and
I see this sunset

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that I think the desert
sky is like, uniquely

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capable of creating, which
is like the pinky-salmon,

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purple-orange.

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In the Midwest, we
have some good ones,

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but not like what you
all have out here.

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And it was the most epic
sunset I'd had the whole two

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years, here was in front of me.

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And I had this news, and
there's this landscape,

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and it was just one of
those inflection points

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that I think a lot of writers
and artists go through,

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where you need that open
door, the next thing.

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And so I bring that up
just to say thank you

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to the universe of that
moment of me in Tucson.

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There's some square of concrete
by that defunct mall that's

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like a Spirit
Halloween or something

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that is like, we'll always have
a piece of me living with it.

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But I do hope for
the young writers

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that when it's your turn to pray
to the gods of the open door,

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that they listen, and
I bet that they will.

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