Homework!

So I’m taking a class at the 92nd Street Y. I have homework! For the first time in years, I have assignments. I love it!! There’s something very relaxing about setting aside 2 or 3 hours, or whatever, and going about the task at hand, whatever it may be. Certainly has a different energy than homework in high school. Every week, we are assigned to read a short story from You’ve Got to Read This: Contemporary American Writers Introduce Stories that Held Them in Awe, a massive anthology of short stories.

Then we discuss them in class.

Uhm … can I describe how heavenly this is? To sit around with a bunch of strangers, and we only have one goal for 3 hours once a week: to discuss short stories, to talk about form, and structure, and story, and how an author gets his point across, and what it all means … It’s just plain old awesome.

We sit in one of the nursery-school rooms on the 6th floor of the Y. So there are finger paintings on the walls, and mobiles hanging everywhere. There is an enormous skylight, and last night we could hear the rain beating down on it. It’s a cool atmosphere, in general – the 92nd Street Y – you walk in and you can feel the buzz – but I think it’s hysterical that we sit around and talk about John Cheever with finger painted blobs all around us, the ghosts and echoes of the little kids who spend most of their days in that room.

But I leave class feeling all pepped up and energized. We also read our work to the class. Which, naturally, is nervewracking – because it’s not a place where you get 100% praise. What needs to be worked on is discussed and parsed apart exhaustively. But it’s all with the intent to help the writer grow, and push himself or herself, which makes a huge difference. It feels honest. It’s not a pampering atmosphere, which has its own brand of dishonesty, and it’s not an abusive critical atmosphere, which is also dishonest.

One woman read something she wrote last night, and it made her so nervous to do so. But anyway, the piece this girl read last night was funny (much laughing out loud from all of us), and sweet, and it left us wanting more. It ended in the middle of an anecdote, and we all were dying to find out what happened. But the beginning of the piece meandered a bit – you weren’t sure who the narrator was right off the bat – and so there was much discussion about all of this. Meanwhile, the woman was busy writing everything down, nodding, sometimes speaking up to explain herself, but mostly just taking notes. And once she finished reading and started listening to the critique, the beautiful thing was – she didn’t seem nervous anymore. Because she was no longer focused on herself, and the “shortcomings” of her work – No. She had found confidence in what she had created, and she was ready to hear about what the next step should be.

It’s a cool thing.

So I’ve been doing a lot of writing, and research for my writing. And also reading all of these great short stories for discussion in class.

This week we have to read Cheever’s Goodbye, My Brother, which I’ve already read … but I started it again last night, to refresh my memory, and realized how much i had forgotten. how much I had blocked out. It’s a painful story. And it’s hard to say why, because the tone is so light, so seemingly superficial … But there’s a world of pain and disconnect underneath.

I just love having homework. It’s a good way to start structuring my time more efficiently.