Raising children is a spur-of-the-moment, seat-of-the-pants sort of deal, as any parent knows, particularly after an adult child says that his most searing memory consists of an offhand comment in the car on the way to second grade that the parent cannot even dimly recall.
The dark aftermath of the frontier, of the vast promise of possibility this country first offered, is an inflated sense of American entitlement today. We want what we want, and we want it now. Easy credit. Fast food. A straight shot down the interstate from point A to point B. The endless highway is crowded with the kinds of cars large enough to take a mountain pass in high snow. Instead they are used to take children from soccer practice to Pizza Hut. In the process they burn fuel like there's no tomorrow. Tomorrow's coming.
What usually happens is that when I'm nearing the end of one novel a vague idea about what I want to do next begins to present itself to me in terms of theme. And I would say over about the next six to eight months, usually as I'm out power walking in the morning, or when I'm cooking at night, or when I'm driving in the car, the people who might embody those themes take on a sharper and sharper focus. And there comes this sort of critical mass moment when they actually start to do things in my head.
A friend and I flew south with our children. During the week we spent together I took off my shoes, let down my hair, took apart my psyche, cleaned the pieces, and put them together again in much improved condition. I feel like a car that's just had a tune-up. Only another woman could have acted as the mechanic.
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