Ramshackle Structures

I love a contraption. There are plenty of fancy, polished boats on the canals and rivers in Amsterdam, but I love the nonsense that people float around on. Nail an armchair to five wooden planks and attach it to a couple of buoyant barrels, stick an engine on it and you are all set. Grab 25 of your closest friends and pile into a rusty hunk of metal, fire up an actual BBQ and a DJ console and set sail. It’s the best. I love anything ramshackle or cobbled together, including houses. Any Pippi Longstocking or Mrs. Piggle Wiggle shabby business is right up my alley. Move over Miss Havisham, I’m joining you in decaying decadence and we’re going to make beautiful mischief together.

Look at this guy lounging with his tomato plants, living his best life

It’s not surprising that I also take a ramshackle approach to my writing, cobbling together weird and disparate tales that don’t, on the surface, seem to have a clear overarching narrative arc, but it’s there, perhaps not visible to the naked eye, depending on the beholder.

Last week I had my group review for my essay collection class, and it went splendidly. It’s the first time in nearly a year that I was wide awake and alert — the class is on Chicago time, which is 1-4 am Amsterdam time, and it’s way harder to be sharp and smart during those hours than I thought it would be, despite how much I like to identify with my inner vampire. I was struggling with what to submit and was tempted to go the safe route with something polished and tight, but instead I submitted a piece I’d been struggling to write for ages. I’ve spent countless hours walking around the canals, trying to solve the puzzle of how to write this piece, and I still don’t have it figured out, but I wrestled it to the ground and turned it in and I am so glad I did. It took arming myself with a box of emotional support Mike & Ikes, Hot Tamales, and a large bag of Skittles from the expensive import store to get me through the critique without crumbling into a puddle, but I did it and I am so grateful to all my classmates for their gentle, wise and honest feedback. I feel like I finally cracked this essay collection open, and I can see how the pieces will fit together. Now I’m going to put all the essay titles on index cards and tape them to the wall behind my desk and move them around, playing with the order, weeding out the ones that don’t fit the connecting narrative arc, and tweaking the ones that do, but need revision.

The structure may be ramshackle, but it’s there, and there’s a beauty to it that may not reveal itself to everyone, but that’s okay. I’m grabbing 25 of my closest friends and we’re setting sail on this contraption. It will float.

The blackberry bush where we moor Shrimpy is some Grimm’s Fairytale business. The thorny vines are wrapping their tendrils around her and taking over.