About a decade ago, I was introduced to an idea that changed the way I wrote. I was in grad school studying to become a writing teacher, and we were talking about what it really means to revise something. A novice writer might look at the word “revision” and think: Check for typos. Polish the grammar. Change some word choices. Done. But an experienced writer will think of revision as something radical. A complete re-write, with an awareness of new ideas and priorities. Much of the initial draft would have to be sacrificed for the greater goal of creating the thing that truly matches what you want to say to the world, and in a way that will reach as many readers of that world. Therefore: a radical revision.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot, not only because I recently taught it in my nonfiction class, but because I’ve been dealing with a lot of radical changes in my non-writing life.
It’s been over two weeks since Jin and I got our second doses of the Moderna vaccine. Other than some expected side effects like fevers and chills, we were completely fine. Many of our friends in Nashville are also now vaccinated, and technically, we could see them in person without masks. We can feel less afraid when entering stores. It’s probably safe to book a timed ticket to an indoor museum. We can expand our pod of people to socialize with.
The timing of our immunity also happened to coincide with moving to a bigger house. Before, we made do with a little less than 1,000 square-feet, occupying the second floor of a house that we shared with a lovely couple that lived downstairs. The layout of our space was such that our queen-size bed had to be placed in the living room, making it look like we lived in a studio apartment. The toddler had a spacious room to himself—until his baby brother came along. A smaller room, the size of a walk-in closet, was where I taught my online classes at night, and where Jin finished law school and studied for the bar exam. The house came with a yard, where neighbors could gather for impromptu social-distanced chats. Even though our legs were eaten alive by mosquitoes and chiggers, every interaction felt worth it.
For a long time, I was reluctant to move. I kept thinking: surely, we could continue to make this work for a little while longer. But as the children grew, I was reminded of the part in Alice in Wonderland where Alice grows too large after eating some mushrooms and her limbs stick out from the corners of the poor White Rabbit’s house. It was time.
Like other radical changes in my life (for example, getting married at City Hall within a month of the proposal, or moving to Nashville after just 5 days of deliberating), both the vaccine and moving houses happened very quickly and without much time to reflect on what was happening while it was happening.
In my writing classes, I talk about radical revision as something to embrace. A necessary act of sacrifice and hard work that will produce better drafts and make them better writers. I also try to champion this in my own work. For every piece that I’ve published, I have up to 10 separate word documents filled with sentences and notes that will never see the light of day.
But unlike writing, life is indifferent to the distinction between the events that we deem important and all the other events that fill up the hours of the day. Yes, we got the vaccine—but the kids have not. And while Jin and I daydream about booking a babysitter and going inside a movie theater or hugging our vaccinated friends, the kids and their needs have us endlessly shifting our feet on the anchored ship that is our still-half-empty house. Our lives, it turns out, don’t look that different from our pre-vaccine days. Perhaps we are also still exercising caution out of fear that the kids might get infected with a deadlier variant. There’s still so much we don’t know about this virus. Similar to how I felt living in our old tiny house, I feel reluctant to change the status quo.
As I look at the piles of unopened boxes in front of me, I also can’t imagine when I’ll feel settled in to this new space. It might even happen when our two-year lease is up, and I’ll have to start the process all over again. As I look ahead at my calendar, I don’t know when I’ll actually feel comfortable hugging my friends again, or when I’ll let another person hold the baby.
It’s possible that I’m still in the thick of these radical changes. I am still processing them; the changes are still occurring. Psychologically, I still don’t have immunity. We have not finished moving.
When I finish writing something, it’s rarely met with fanfare or a sense that it’s over when I type a period at the end of the last sentence. I go back and forth. I revise radically. I take a break, come back to read it out loud for myself, and am usually surprised that it is more complete than I’d expected it to be. I have a feeling it’ll be something like that with these other radical changes. It’ll be slow. It’ll be messy. It’ll take time.
I’ll be teaching a couple more classes via The Porch Writers’ Collective. I’d love to have you, especially while we continue our classes on Zoom. Feel free to spread the word!
Micro-Memoirs on Parenthood (same class as the one I taught in Fall 2020), Wednesdays August 4 - 25, 7-9 p.m. CT.
One-Day class: Writing About Grief via Richard Rodriguez’s “Late Victorians,” Saturday, August 21, 1-3 p.m. CT.