The Boundaries of What Matters

Once in a while, the boys are actually sort of sweet

I just finished an essay for an upcoming issue of Taproot based on our experiences with children and guns and, by extension, our views relating to risk and kids. I would tell you what these views are, or you could just scroll through the past couple years of posts. Or buy the next issue of Taproot… now, there’s an idea!

Sometimes I’m a little nervous writing what I truly believe, and this was one of those times. Held in separation, the subjects of children/parenting and guns are volatile enough. But put ‘em together, and the potential to foment strong emotional reaction isn’t really potential, at all: It’s pretty much guaranteed.

I’ve been publishing long enough to understand that no matter how carefully I choose my words, someone’s going to interpret them in ways I could never have imagined. I will never forget reading a pair of reviews of my first book (this being back in the day when I still bothered to do such things) that directly contradicted one another in their criticisms. One claimed I was serving as nothing more than a puppet mouthpiece for the new crop of Hardwick-area agripreneurs (I’m pretty sure the reviewer actually posited that these folks had paid me to write the book); the other took me to task for being needlessly critical of all the good people who comprised this new agricultural revolution, suggesting I must have had a personal axe to grind.

Anyhow. I have witnessed the same phenomenon in this space, and while I can’t say it never bothers me, I have come to understand it to be part-and-parcel of writing about things that actually matter to me. This was not always the case; for years, I wrote most innocuous ski travel stories and other such vacuity, and while it sure was fun in that way that all-expenses-paid-ski-vacations-that-you-get-paid-to-write-about don’t exactly suck, it wasn’t exactly, um, fulfilling.

The truth is, I am coming to a place where I can hardly bear to write a story that I don’t on some level care deeply about. From a strictly fiduciary standpoint, this is mildly problematic: There are a heck of a lot more editors looking for glow-y travel stories than there are looking for essays about buying guns for kids, and the former generally have far deeper pockets. Viewing things solely through the mentality of money, writing about what feels important to me is very bad business, indeed. And then there’s the simple fact that it tends to ruffle feathers, and that on some level or another, I have to figure out how to deal with the reverberations of those ruffles. One of the things I am learning about this space – a lesson I credit to Jon Katz – is that this blog is not an argument. But that doesn’t mean I’m not affected by unkind sentiments or, more profoundly, by the knowledge that my words did not come across as intended.

I try hard – with varying degrees of success – to avoid fretting about the future of my so-called career. Somewhere in the past three years or so, I took a hard left turn toward doing the only thing I’m capable of doing at this point in my life. There is no going back. There will be no more all-expenses-paid trips to Whistler. There are unlikely to be any more $2-per-word travel feature stories at all. This is not a calculated decision, and it’s certainly not because these things are bad, or wrong; it’s simply that I’ve become incapable of writing them. I just don’t care enough anymore.

What a privilege it is to write (and get paid to write) about things I do care about. I am currently working on not one, but two books that fall within the boundaries of what matters to me, and although the money ain’t great, it’s just barely enough. The property taxes will be paid. The cows will have hay and free choice kelp. The car will get winter tires. In January, sure, and only after having gotten almost inextractibly stuck at least twice, but it will get winter tires. Come deer season, there will be ammo for the guns. If there should happen to be a pre-holiday reissue of Van Halen’s 1984, complete with liner notes and never-before-seen photos of backstage antics, I might just be able to afford it. Really, what more can anyone ask?

Plenty, I suppose, and whether or not I can afford to continue walking this path over the long haul remains to be seen. But strangely, the older I get, the less I need to know what might happen tomorrow, or even later today. Strangely, the older I get, the less I need for other people to agree with me. And the older I get, the better I understand is that all I’ve got is here and now. For now, anyway, that’s enough for me.