Once A Runner

March 4, 2017 By Matthew Komatsu in Running, Uncategorized Tags: Parenting, Reading, running, writing 2 Comments

It goes like this.

An inch of snow the consistency of a Slurpee. A 6.5 mile loop from the house. Two dogs. A running stroller loaded with thirty-three pounds of inquisitive man-cub. And the desperate need to run.

To say that I’ve logged the majority of my paltry mileage over the last few years while behind a stroller; it’s no exaggeration. Between developing chronic tendinosis in my Achilles, the pursuit of writing, and the endless flail that is trying to strike a balance between fatherhood/husband-ing/work, my fitness has fallen to the point of convenience. It shows around my middle, ten pounds tacked to my last marathon race weight. And in my temperament.

When I do get in a run, I feel an obligation to bring Finn with me for some fresh air and get the dogs exercise as well. An hour run turns into an hour and half, what with the prep of wrangling the dogs, getting Finn on the toilet, and wrestling him into clothes before restraining him in the stroller. And all this says nothing about the attempt to reach emotional buy-in from a toddler regarding his being strapped into a buggy for an hour or more.

Gone are the days of lacing up and strolling out the door maybe now, maybe later, maybe after I feel fully hydrated. Maybe when it’s warmer/colder/just right. Nope. The choice is now/never.

Huff huff.

“Dada?”

Huff huff INHALE “Yes?” huff

“What’s that?”

Huff “What?” huff

“What’s that [insert unintelligible thing or whatever he sees but can’t describe]?”

Huff “Dada.” huff “can’t.” huff “talk.”

[pause for a few seconds]

“Dada, what’s that?”

huff huff huff

In the good old days, when he weighed seven or eight pounds, and was in perpetual oscillation between either sleeping a little or crying a lot, taking Finn for a run was a welcome reprieve for both Jen and I. Fitter then, pushing the light-as-air stroller we paid out the nose for, I could log ten, eleven miles. I’d come back crowing about how he slept the whole time I bounced along at a 7:30 pace. Jen got a break, I got a run. Win-win.

Now: see above for the work required. And that’s best-case, assuming no meltdowns, or as I discovered on a recent trip to tow him on a cross-country ski — I don’t do something boneheaded like somehow bring two left foot ski boots.

Taking Finn on a run or ski is like having the exercise partner who won’t stop talking. Except, the beauty of an adult running partner who talks for an hour straight is that they usually don’t expect a response. Finn is a toddling interrogator, and if he doesn’t get an answer, or understand it, well, he’ll just ask again. And again. And again. It would try the patience of a seasoned extrovert, let alone a self-absorbed narcissist who does best left alone (that’s me in case you’re wondering.)

I’ve been told that a big part of active parenting is lowering expectations, and in my experience, it couldn’t be more true. Maybe that six mile run needs to be just three. Maybe plan on stopping if the route passes a park. Maybe slow down so you have the breath to explain something. Maybe plan on skiing for fifteen minutes before heading inside for forty-five. Because — and here’s the kicker — if you make the kiddo hate the activity, that’s going to stick with them for the lifetime.

There is light at the end of the tunnel. Last summer, Finn asked to “run like Dada” every time we went out. I let him out near home, maybe a half mile to go, and was tickled when he managed to keep up a ten minute pace for several blocks. Of course, there were some really interesting leaves/rocks/branches/dirt/concrete/street signs/air/just about everything that simply had to be investigated at that very moment. But he was running. And this winter, I built a little snow hill off the backyard deck. Finn just learned to make it down the hill on skis without falling, and the smile on his face was worth all the hot chocolate bribery of last winter.

So, hang in there. What you once were, is still who you are. The cool part is letting that thing that made you who you were, evolve as you become who you are.

Reading War: Brian Castner’s ALL THE WAYS WE KILL AND DIE

February 28, 2017 By Matthew Komatsu in Reading, War Tags: All the Ways We Kill and Die, Brian Castner, Craft, Memoir, Nonfiction, Reading, Reportage, War, writing 1 Comment

Note: I published a lengthy review of the book on The Millions, which you can find here.

Early on in the MFA program, I decided my goal was to write a war memoir. It was actually was less evident to than you might guess — my original plan was an essay collection, but evidently those are difficult to get published as a first time author — but it also made a lot of sense. Technically, the very first thing I ever published was, after all, technically memoir. And by “memoir,” I mean it was an examination of something from my personal history.

The next logical step was to read as much war memoir as possible, which was how I became familiar with Brian Castner. An Air Force EOD veteran of Iraq, he wrote a memoir called The Long Walk (which has since been adapted as an opera) that stuck with me because of its fragmentary nature. It was willfully disorienting, the fragmentation a clear representation of a mind at search for a thread while weaving in and out of traumatic experiences. It reminded me, and quite a few others, of Michael Herr’s Dispatches.

Castner’s second book, All the Ways We Kill and Die: An Elegy for a Fallen Comrade and the Hunt for His Killer, is much different. Brian is also a freelance journalist with a fistful of longform/narrative nonfiction pieces, and the book is much more in the vein of reportage. By design, he’s told me, although I argued in my review that he as narrator is central enough to earn a “memoir” as a label as well.

In an MFA program like mine, you read a lot of nonfiction that weaves reportage and essay. Leslie Jameson, Eula Biss, John McPhee: these are just a tiny few who build narratives from both in-depth research and thoughtful reflection. In fact, modern creative nonfiction owes much to The New Journalism that erupted in the 60s from writers like Didion, Wolfe, and Gay. But once you narrow the lens to something like the idea of reading things written by veterans, well the list gets short. Really short. So while Castner’s second book was certainly beautifully written, it was also helpful and inspiring to see a fellow vet out there working the creative side and the journalism side.

Memoir, of course, requires a certain amount of research, even if it only consists of reaching into the depths of our memories to recall the who and where. But there’s something to the idea of dipping in and out, as the narrator in All the Ways does. One minute, we’re in his head, at his friend’s funeral. The next, we’re inside the head of a drone pilot. It taught me the value of the reporter’s skill of information gathering – of noticing in that particular habit of picking up stones to see what lies underneath. It’s a skill foreign to me that, thankfully, Castner nails in the book.

Note: If you’re reading this in Anchorage or Juneau, you have the opportunity to interact with Brian Castner at one of several events next week. On Friday, 10 Mar at the Juneau Public Library, he will give a talk before leading a writing workshop the next day, again in Juneau. On Sunday, 12 Mar, I will moderate a discussion between Brian and and Alaska author Don Rearden at 49th State Brewery at 7pm. I hope to see you there.

Reading War: Matt Gallagher’s YOUNGBLOOD

February 25, 2017 By Matthew Komatsu in Reading, War Tags: Fiction, Iraq, Kaboom, Matt Gallagher, Nonfiction, Novel, Story, War, writing, Youngblood Leave a comment

Note: I reviewed Youngblood for Foreign Policy last year. If you’re interested in that take, which had to conform to Tom Ricks’ lethal editorial pen, you can view it here.

I had room to cram two books into the survival ruck I jumped onto the Polar Icecap last year. One of them was Matt Gallagher‘s debut novel Youngblood (I’ll get to that other one in another post.) I’d begun the book a few weeks earlier, so it was a bit of a risky move to bring a half-read book knowing I might be stuck on the Beaufort Sea for longer than expected. But I owed a review, and Gallagher is a damn fine writer, so it made sense on a lot of levels. The gamble paid off, big time.

In the space of one claustrophobic and very cold afternoon, I tore through the rest of the book. And cutting right to the chase: it was the Iraq novel I’d been waiting for.

Now, feel free to take all this with a grain of salt. I am, after all, a nonfiction writer, which means the lion’s share of my reading is nonfiction. But story is story. The Yellow Birds (Kevin Powers), Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk (Ben Fountain), Redeployment (Phil Klay): they all filled a need. Namely, the desire to clear a guilty conscience. Respectively: the individual soldier’s, a nation’s, and the outsider’s. I take nothing away from each of those excellent books. They were necessary. The writing was outstanding. But they were also well, kind of depressing.

Youngblood, by contrast, is best described as vibrant. It’s a technicolor story, complete with engrossing action and heartstopping literary value. Having met Gallagher now, and read just about everything he’s written, there’s a lot of the guy I had the pleasure of sharing a couple of drinks with in Youngblood. Which is not to say it isn’t a serious book — it is — but it’s also a hell of a lot of fun.

The basic premise is Iraq sometime during the Surge. Lt Jack Porter stumbles upon information about a troublesome NCO assigned to him, which leads Jack down an ill-advised investigative path that will twist and turn him on a plot line like something out of a hardboiled detective novel. Oh, and there’s that war-thing going on as well. And that’s about all I’m willing to share with you, because I want you to pick up a copy and read it for yourself.

I’d, of course read Kaboom, Gallagher’s memoir. So I was familiar with his wit, ability to turn a pretty phrase, and capacity for laugh-out-loud humor. But with Youngblood, you can sense Gallagher at a blank canvas, creating a world grounded by experience but broadened by creativity. What I took away from the book was a lesson in storytelling on the extended arc that a novel requires. Writing essays, longform, memoir, it took me a few years to come to grips with the idea that a writer must answer the pesky question, “what’s this about?”Not what happens — that much will be evident — but the thing that changes, the question that is answered, and so on. You must be able to answer the question as the author, or the reader will never have snowball’s chance in hell. That essay I’ve written about previous, “Calling Jody with the Ghost Brigade”: it wasn’t until I’d already begun submitting that I realized I’d written a lot of pretty sentences, compelling scene and assembled an interesting structure. But I couldn’t tell you what it was about. Once I decided that it was about the process of grief and memory, it made things a whole lot easier. I was able to dial things up here, eliminate dead weight there, so that once the reader hit the last sentence, they would be able to answer the question (I hope, anyway.)

One one hand, short stories and essays are disadvantaged by what must be an economical approach. A couple thousand words goes by pretty fast and you have to get to the point. Novels like Youngblood have the luxury of time and length to get the reader there. But the flip side of this is that length is no cure for inefficient and bloated writing. We’ve all been there, laboring through an extraneous chapter, wondering when we’re gonna get to the good stuff. But Youngblood had none of that. Gallagher keeps the story tight, clipping along, to the point that backstory feels less like a side-trip than it does a necessary pause.

So, there you go. Turns out novels can be good for your nonfiction. Especially if the novel you’re looking at for inspiration just so happens to be Youngblood.