The Search for Love:  On Shining Motorcycles

The Search for Love: On Shining Motorcycles

I don’t know much about motorcycles, except that men seem to like them. My first year of college, I planned to be a writer. I was taking a creative writing class, and that detail about men was reason enough for me to write a motorcycle poem. In it, a man is waxing his bike, and a woman watches. I had little romantic experience at that point, but I already knew that the human need for love was going to drive me artistically. Now, I’ll get bored occasionally with the status quo—doing more of the same, in the same way. So instead of crafting here a well-behaved essay, with tight focus, I’ve mixed it up. Today’s piece winds between the search for love, the ways of teachers, and the methods and idiosyncrasies of poets. Are you scratching your head, thinking, “Those things go together?” Yes, they do—so follow along, and I’ll illustrate. I don’t know about you, but it’s reassuring to me to hear other people’s stories, to be reminded I’m not the only one walking some wobbly blacktop through life.

Drinking Kahvi with the Uncles:  Keeping Our Stories Alive

Drinking Kahvi with the Uncles: Keeping Our Stories Alive

Many years ago, I went home to our family farm to visit my mom and dad. While I was there, my mother’s brothers Ernie and Bill came by. We fell into telling family stories over kahvi, which is Finnish for “coffee.” We sat a long time at that table, reminiscing and laughing as the blues and grays of evening began to filter in through the window. It struck me that no one turned a light on—no one wanted to break the spell. My uncles were educators and good storytellers. There was a playful impertinence in their eyes as they told their stories, and I understood it completely. Drinking kahvi with the uncles, I saw again what I’d always known: playful impertinence runs in our family. It’s why I write, why I write what I write—more than that, why I write poetry, which to much of the world seems a waste of time.

Donna Salli - Seated - Color

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