10 Comments

1. 

   Lisa W. Rosenberg on March 6, 2013 at 7:14 am

   Tele, I love hear­ing about your life. In the video, it was espe­cial­ly inter­est­ing to me when you talked about the fish­er­man’s work-eth­ic and not being able to trans­late that to writ­ing. I think about this a lot – not in terms of com­par­ing it to the fish­er life, but in gen­er­al. I’m think­ing about oth­er lives I’ve had, danc­ing, teach­ing, social work, which some­times involved hours upon hours of paper­work, where I could keep going all day, because I had to get the job done, peri­od. With those jobs, you also know what a “done” job looks like. I think with writ­ing – cre­ative writ­ing – you don’t kknow what “done” will be until it’s here. Also, there is this strain of sit­ting and cre­at­ing, of describ­ing a moment or a feel­ing and try­ing to get it just right. I’m con­vinced it’s a total­ly dif­fer­ent kind of hard work – maybe that oth­ers can’t see, but it’s weary­ing in a strange but sat­is­fy­ing way. You do have to get up and get cof­fee or some­thing after a few hours! Won­der­ful video and won­der­ful writ­ing, as always!

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     Tele on March 9, 2013 at 11:30 pm

     Lisa, thank you so much for tak­ing the time to offer your thoughts on this one! I know you get this, and real­ly val­ue your per­spec­tive. That’s a great point about the dif­fer­ence between work that has a clear “done” and this cre­ative work that has so many var­i­ous stages of “done.” And, like you, it seemed like I could go for­ev­er in my social work days. There was such urgent neces­si­ty — kids need­ed food, socks, hous­ing appli­ca­tion, love — that walk­ing away seemed uncon­scionable when peo­ple were so depen­dent on me doing my job. Maybe bal­let was sim­i­lar, in your fel­low dancers depend­ing on you? Cer­tain­ly fish­ing is like that, as far as being a team oper­a­tion, every­one need­ing to car­ry their weight and work togeth­er to get things done safe­ly and effec­tive­ly. Maybe that’s anoth­er dif­fer­ence with writ­ing… You and I are both blessed with com­mu­ni­ties who sup­port and encour­age our words, yet in rough times I can still find myself tip­toe­ing that “this isn’t NECESSARY, no one’s depend­ing on this being fin­ished” line. At what point does our own need mer­it the same devo­tion as others’?

     Thanks for the con­ver­sa­tion, Lisa. As always, best wish­es to you and yours.

2. 

   Kari on March 6, 2013 at 2:14 pm

   Tele, you are so f*cking tal­ent­ed! Excel­lent mul­ti­me­dia pre­sen­ta­tion over there. Beau­ti­ful read­ing, beau­ti­ful writ­ing, beau­ti­ful video. My mea­sures of love are much like yours. Rob and I are part­ners who aren’t sick of each oth­er yet, who cud­dle up with our pets and declare our­selves “fam-lee.” Sup­port for each oth­er’s dreams is an impor­tant com­po­nent as well, and I’ve only recent­ly dis­cov­ered how to ask for it.

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     Tele on March 9, 2013 at 11:35 pm

     Ask­ing for what we need is hard. It’s still hard for me, too. So many times — par­tic­u­lar­ly on the boat — I catch myself feel­ing resent­ful for things Joel isn’t doing/saying/offering: things that I haven’t said I need, but he should just know! And then I think about hav­ing seen that kind of mind-read­ing expec­ta­tion between my par­ents, and oth­ers, and how great that went. Even being con­scious of our ridiculous/unfair moments, it’s still tough to shift. I’m glad you’re get­ting there, sweetie.

3. 

   Patricia Sands on March 9, 2013 at 5:15 pm

   Tele, I heard your voice the oth­er day when I lis­tened to the video on pre­vi­ous post and it was fun to feel almost like I had final­ly met you in per­son. I was impressed with your calm pre­sen­ta­tion skills and your fab­u­lous voice! “Love At Sea” is noth­ing short of beau­ti­ful and once again your voice is the per­fect vehi­cle. Appar­ent­ly your tal­ent knows no bounds! I am so glad I did­n’t miss this and am even more eager to read your book. Is there a release date?

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     Tele on March 10, 2013 at 9:02 pm

     Ah shucks, Patri­cia — thanks for all of your sweet­ness. The audio/video read­ings are a fun (if one-sided) step towards fur­ther con­nec­tion, and I’m opti­mistic that we’ll cross paths in the not-so-far-off future. Between you and Gra­ham Milne, two of my favorite inter­net writer friends have made Toron­to sound like a lot of fun. A release date is a VERY long dream away yet, but my pro­pos­al’s cur­rent­ly mak­ing the rounds among some pub­lish­ers, so fin­gers crossed. Best spring wish­es to you and yours; hope you had a love­ly Inter­na­tion­al Wom­en’s Day on Friday!

4. 

   Todd on March 17, 2013 at 6:36 am

   Tele: Great post and super video. I drove by Port Townsend a few weeks ago on one of my
   many trips to Port Ange­les and saw the Ner­ka out of the water. I wish you and Joel speedy
   repairs! I just signed a con­tract to sell the old boat.…and the new boat will hopefully
   splash back in the water with­in the next 2 weeks and we’ll start in Ore­gon this April.
   Again…great post…love your writing.

   • 

     Tele on March 28, 2013 at 4:24 pm

     Thanks for stop­ping by, Todd, and I hope you enjoy your new boat — it’s sure a good one. Best wish­es for get­ting com­fort­able with her off Oregon!

5. 

   Heather on March 19, 2013 at 4:15 pm

   Tele,
   I am moved so deeply by your descrip­tion of “Love at Sea”. I am so famil­iar with var­i­ous ver­sions of love, includ­ing famil­ial, friend­ship and roman­tic rela­tion­ships. Some of the most mean­ing­ful apolo­gies I’ve ever received or giv­en were from trans­gres­sions on the back deck or fights that bounced off the tiny sweat­ing alu­minum cab­ins on our gillnetters.
   I con­tem­plate what it would be like to fish my boat the Sil­ver Kris with my beloved, Sean, and won­der if it would bring us clos­er or push us apart. I believe it would do both at dif­fer­ent times, but over­all that it would cre­ate one of the most pro­found bonds pos­si­ble between part­ners. I admire your abil­i­ty to nav­i­gate the work­ing and roman­tic aspects of your rela­tion­ship with Joel, and aspire to con­duct myself with a sim­i­lar atti­tude. I am so glad to know you are out there fish­ing and writ­ing and weav­ing your diverse selves into one gor­geous and tal­ent­ed crea­ture. Thank you for once again, shar­ing your­self with such can­dor and grace­ful elo­quence. Look­ing for­ward to more.

   • 

     Tele on March 28, 2013 at 7:32 pm

     Heather, I’m late in respond­ing to your beau­ti­ful com­ment, but appre­ci­at­ed it from the moment you left it! Thank you for shar­ing here. I know what you mean by the most mean­ing­ful apolo­gies… In my case, I’ve often had to be the one mak­ing those amends. I appre­ci­ate your com­pli­men­ta­ry words, but the truth is, I’m far bet­ter on paper (screen) than I have been on deck. With Joel and pre­vi­ous ship­mates, I’ve def­i­nite­ly not been my best self while fish­ing. There are plen­ty of reasons/excuses, and you know them as well as any­one — sleep depri­va­tion, intense pres­sure, com­pe­ti­tion, cramped liv­ing quar­ters, blah blah blah. I’m still — always! — aspir­ing to be that per­son with the bet­ter atti­tude, and fre­quent­ly falling very short. 

     This sum­mer will be our 8^th year fish­ing togeth­er. Last year was worse than some of our ear­li­er sea­sons, in terms of our com­mu­ni­ca­tion. Those ups and downs are a curi­ous thing to me — how is it that we can get WORSE at work­ing togeth­er, with more expe­ri­ence and famil­iar­i­ty? But even when it’s a bad time, or I’m dis­ap­point­ed with my own behav­ior or my reac­tions to his, there’s still no oth­er boat I’d rather be work­ing on. That’s the most pow­er­ful les­son for me: con­flict isn’t con­clu­sion. Those bad times aren’t deal-break­ers; we get through them, and get more oppor­tu­ni­ties to prac­tice a dif­fer­ent way of being. I sus­pect you’ve tak­en sim­i­lar lessons from your experiences. 🙂

     I’m SO pleased to have met you, Heather. I’m eager to learn more about your own journey.