I remember my first encounter with an unfriendly fence. No metaphor here. It was an actual angry fence. Up to this point in my life, fences were by and large benevolent beings…things to climb over, under, sit on, lean on, or ignore, all at my own will. My favorite fence was actually a rock wall surrounding our farmhouse in rural Massachusetts. I could walk along the top of it, hide notes or little baby food jars filled with my secret treasures, usually buttons or bugs or interesting pebbles, or play follow the leader over and around it with my little brother in tow. That this particular wall was covered in poison ivy which had no effect on me, but caused my pesky brother to break out in a brutal rash was all just part of the seeming camaraderie I had with the fences in my life. And probably tells you a little bit about my dark side… Anyway…
That was before I met the newest addition to our fence collection. Unlike the others, this one seemed to have only one purpose. It was there to keep things in. Specifically, our four Arabian horses. There was no climbing over, under, or leaning on this fence. And if you forgot where it was, and actually backed into it, as I did one summer when I was nine, hitting it with the back of my bare neck, it attacked. There was a sharp pain like the sting of a large angry bee, a flash, and a thumping that went all the way to my toes. That was the first time I understood that brushing up against fences could cause pain.
Despite my earlier reference to deliberately exposing my kid brother to poison ivy, I was a pretty sensitive kid. I felt bad for our horses, even though I knew my dad put the electric fence up to keep them in the pasture and safe from the neighboring highway. I had a hard time looking past the pain & confusion they must have felt the first time one of them came in contact with the ugly wires. I also noticed that it wasn’t long before they stayed away from the edges of the pasture, sticking together in the “safe” center until they were called into the barn each night.
I also spent less time going to the pasture to visit them. It was a hassle to turn off the circuit box which sent the pulse of electricity to the fence, and then try to remember to turn it back on again. The fence kept us apart. Or to put it more accurately, the fear of getting shocked again often kept me away.
I hadn’t thought about that shock for a long time. It’s been almost 40 years since the nape of my neck met that pulsing wire, but the sting of it stayed with me. Or rather, the fear did. And that fear of what could happen if we brush up against the fences that surround us is what I want to talk about tonight.
When I started to plan my opening remarks around this year’s theme, all the metaphorical fences I’ve put into my life sprang to my mind… The boundaries we construct around our relationships with family, friends, teachers & coworkers… cultural and religious lines …the county line and city borders… the East-West and urban-rural divides in both the country and in our own region. The borders we encounter in our own neighborhoods… Racial, ethnic, and political lines. We’re surrounded by the language all the time. Know your limits. Set your boundaries. Create a safe place. Know your place. No trespassing. It’s a lexicon of possession, of belonging, of exclusion, and very often centered in fear. A world that seems to reward sticking to what you know, who you know, protecting what’s “yours,” and playing it safe. A world that is filled with fences that are reinforced by what we read and how we read it through social media and google searches.
So, out of curiosity, I decided to go to the dictionary (remember those?) to look up the definition of “fence”:
FENCE
noun:
a barrier, railing, or other upright structure, typically of wood or wire, enclosing an area of ground to mark a boundary, control access, or prevent escape. (Yep. Escape.)
There was also this… for grins and giggles.
informal a person who deals in stolen goods. That’s probably a topic for a different speech…
Which leads me to the Verbs
Fence: (Continuing in the theme) To deal in (stolen goods). To fight with swords, especially as a sport.
And this I found especially interesting…To conduct a discussion or argument in such a way as to avoid the direct mention of something.
Playing it safe. Sticking to the script. Keeping to your own back yard.
I don’t know about you yet, but I suspect that since you are here, you, like me, don’t want to live within the boundaries of that world. It seems to be at odds with living a creative life. A life filled with risk and mistakes and thrill and rejection and loneliness and euphoria and community. It’s filled with new places and new experiences. New people and new perspectives. A new frontier.
So, what’s a frontier anyway?
Be honest. How many of you flash back on Star Trek when you hear that word.
Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its continuing mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before.
It’s time to go back to the dictionary.
FRONTIER
noun: frontier; plural noun: frontiers
a line or border separating two countries.
synonyms:
border, boundary, borderline, dividing line, demarcation line;
the district near a border separating two countries.
the extreme limit of settled land beyond which lies wilderness, especially referring to the western US before Pacific settlement. the extreme limit of understanding or achievement in a particular area.
The extreme limit. I love that phrase. Living a creative life seems to be about constantly seeking out that extreme limit. Summer Fishtrap gives you the opportunity to push that boundary out even further. Your extreme limit borders someone else’s and together you get to push even farther. To boldly go where no writer has gone before. And to do it in a part of the world that has and will continue to inspire this exploration. This risk taking.
Of course, not all fences are bad fences. For instance, I’m partial to the one in my back yard that keeps my dogs from exploring all of Wallowa County on their own. As a matter of fact, on a rainy Sunday afternoon a few years after the great electric fence encounter, while my parents and I were in the livingroom firmly absorbed in our books, my little brother ran in and said, “Oooh! Look how pretty the horses look running in front of the house!” To be clear, we didn’t have a pasture in front of the house. We did have a road. A very public road. Our very sturdy fence, complete with electric wire, had a very open gate.
That story ended happily, by the way.
Positive creative fences can be the way we begin to learn craft. To be comfortable and maybe even proficient in our genres. To learn the basics. They have their place. At their best, they give us room to grow and gather courage. They’re safe spaces to learn. Our schools, teachers, mentors, writing groups, community spaces, are all places where we can safely learn, so that eventually, we can make the leap to something new and expansive. The challenge is knowing when they stop being good benevolent fences that you can sit on and lean on and play with, and when they become razor-wire prison walls that keep your creativity small and captive.
So, this week, I want to issue a challenge. If you need to, start with the known. With where you are. Look around. Think about where you come from. The stories you tell about yourself. Your understanding of your world, your community. Your craft. Your writing.
Then, OPEN THE GATE. Be brave. Discover a new frontier. Run into a field. Go jump in the lake. Go places you’ve never been before. Even scarier? Sit down with someone who doesn’t know you. Or think like you. Or write like you. Or look like you. Ask questions. Be generous with your voice, your time. Find your new extreme limit. Try something new. And if you fail? You can’t. No one is grading you here.
And don’t forget this time, the time you spend working on your craft, telling your story… It’s important. Maybe never more so than now.
Orlando. Dallas. Baton Rouge. St. Paul.
Fear. Privilege. Invisibility. Anger. Hate. Bigotry. Misogyny.
Clear thinking and good writing are tools we can use to tear down these ugly, pain-filled fences. We can be leaders. Writers, artists, musicians, and all creative people who come to learn through their work that these boundaries are artificial at best, and deadly at worst.
One more horse story and then I’ll leave you. We had one very special gelding who on the surface was the definition of a docile gentleman. He was also shrewd. From the pasture, you could hear the pulsing click from the power box that sent the electric surge around the fence line. In between each click, the wires were just wires. That old gelding would touch his nose to the wire in between each of those pulses, and I swear to God, give my dad the side eye. And every spring, without fail, he would break through the locked gate just to show us he could.
Welcome to Summer Fishtrap. Go break through your fences and get some writing done.