i've been looking over the book that i carried with me to the beach this summer, to the campsites the family visited on weekends, on long car rides, and into the air-conditioned sunroom during spokane's near- (or was it over-?) 100-degree heatwave. perhaps reading it was an odd form of procrastination (from doing any writing of my own), or perhaps it stemmed from a deep and honest desire to improve--but here it is.
anna, you may remember this. i can't recall how often you joined us camping at fort spokane, but i can distinctly remember many occasions on which i stretched out next to oksana in the grass and read this, fully engrossed, while she read her kindle. we gave up hours of swimming and hiking and eating mom's smoky camp-flavored borsht because we were too busy navigating our own imaginary worlds--and i don't even know if i can use that excuse, because this isn't fiction, or creative nonfiction even--this is a fucking guide. a textbook, basically, seduced me away from my family.
i'm not even sure it helped me. i read it all the way through several times, but i still feel--when i flip it open nowadays and starting reading randomly--that i'm seeing his words for the first time. i hope, for the sake of easing my conscience about how i spent my summer, that this book is secretly directing my writing through my subconscious mind.
which, now that i think about it, might actually be true. did i tell you that i've been narrating the scenes of my dreams again? it hasn't happened for a long time, and it was familiarly weird when i noticed it last night. mom called me a whore in a thick (slightly thicker than usual) eastern european accent, and i narrated our movements, thoughts, and reactions in a steady drone.
this is what you do to me, william zinssler. i love you.
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