Tele Aadsen

writer - fisherman - listener

Twelve years ago I went fish­ing to save my life. I begged a six-week sab­bat­i­cal from the non-prof­it where I ran a din­ner pro­gram and trolled alleys for young peo­ple in cri­sis, ask­ing for a week at sea for every year I’d spent on land. My child­hood best friend, Mar­lin, need­ed a deck­hand. I need­ed to know if I still exist­ed out­side city shadows.

 

Fishing’s famil­iar demands soothed me. The phys­i­cal­i­ty of the work pulled me back into my body, while the monot­o­ny forced intro­spec­tion I’d long avoid­ed. The six weeks washed by. Each revealed a new lay­er of how burned-out, bro­ken, and out­right fucked-up I’d become. When the real­iza­tion that I couldn’t go back to my job out­weighed my shame and fear of let­ting peo­ple down, I sent a mass email to my col­leagues, rather than hon­or­ing my employ­er with pri­vate notice. I didn’t even see the impro­pri­ety. That’s how far gone I was.

 

I’m recall­ing that group email today as I write to share some news. The kind of news that should be shared in per­son, indi­vid­u­al­ly, with eye con­tact obscured only by steam ris­ing from a cra­dled cup. Instead, we are here, com­mu­ni­cat­ing across screens and time. Once again, it’s the best I can do.

 

Join Me for a Cup of Coffee

 

 

 

The Ner­ka spent most of last May trolling off the Wash­ing­ton coast. We leased a per­mit and charged out to fish­ing grounds known as the Prairie, 35 miles off­shore. With week­ly catch lim­its of forty king salmon, it didn’t take long before we’d be back at the dock in Neah Bay, guests of the Makah Indi­an Nation.

 

Dur­ing one of those times in port, I sched­uled a call with my lit­er­ary agent, Pamela, to see if there was any news about my book. We hadn’t heard any­thing from my edi­tor since I sub­mit­ted the fourth revi­sion in late Feb­ru­ary. I’d remind­ed myself everyone’s lives are chaot­ic and com­plex; her silence didn’t have to be about me or my book.

 

Stand­ing on the deck, I laugh­ing­ly warned Pamela about the back­ground noise, a pride of sea lions loung­ing on a neigh­bor­ing pier. Even over their bel­low­ing, I could hear her take a deep breath.

 

I have some very hard news. Your edi­tor has decid­ed not to accept your lat­est revi­sion. They’re retract­ing your contract.”

 

We each have our own walk through grief. Auto­mat­i­cal­ly, I always first turn to the path my par­ents cleared: don’t wal­low, prob­lem-solve, get shit done. Even as my stom­ach dropped to my toes, my brain focused on get­ting shit done. Okay. Okay. If she doesn’t want it, who else will? Do I have to rewrite the orig­i­nal pro­pos­al, or can we sub­mit the book as is? What do you need from me first? I fum­bled for a pen to take notes.

 

Pamela’s gen­tle words were extend­ed palms, urg­ing me to stop rush­ing to the next task. Stop try­ing to out­run my feel­ings. And those feel­ings did indeed catch right up with me, steam­rolling over me. I don’t under­stand; she respond­ed so well to the third revi­sion in Decem­ber; she named the prob­lem areas, I thought I addressed them. What changed? How did we go from “We’re so close!” to “Nev­er mind”?

 

This con­fu­sion was what broke me. I pud­dled to the deck, strug­gling to mask a thick­en­ing voice. Pamela wasn’t fooled. Being the bear­er of hard news takes a spe­cial kind of strength and com­pas­sion. Then and now, I’m grate­ful to have heard this from her, stead­fast sup­port audi­ble as she spoke. After con­firm­ing Joel was with me, that I wasn’t alone, her voice steeled. “This is not your book. This is a ter­ri­ble, shit­ty, shit­ty expe­ri­ence, but it’s not your book.”

 

Joel was wait­ing in the cab­in. I crum­pled into his arms. Mouth stretched in silent keen­ing, I couldn’t answer his ques­tions, join in his out­rage or accept his con­so­la­tion; couldn’t hear any­thing but my own inse­cu­ri­ties, affirmed. I’d held the gold­en egg writ­ers dream of – and I’d lost it. How am I going to tell every­one who’s been so sup­port­ive of Hooked? 

 

Some­times, in times of deep­est wound­ing, even the gen­tlest touch is too much. Maybe espe­cial­ly the gen­tlest touch, when we believe our­selves unwor­thy of such kind­ness. I shrank from Joel’s hand stroking my back as I bent over the gal­ley sink; his insis­tence, firm as water’s down­stream promis­es, that this wasn’t the end. I pulled away from it all, went down to the fo’c’sle, crawled into the bunk ful­ly dressed and drew the blan­ket over my head.

 

I dreamed I was going fish­ing with Mar­lin. Mar­lin: my cho­sen broth­er, the cap­tain who pro­vid­ed a refuge from social work, the friend who urges reflec­tion. I dreamed we were in a mad scram­ble to throw every­thing on board and charge out to the fish­ing grounds, no time to con­sid­er the chaos or tend to the details, now we had to go, go now! I dreamed my nerves vibrat­ing from the urgency, the reck­less­ness, the absolute absence of control.

 

Only as I cut the dock lines did I get a look at the boat tak­ing us to sea. Below the spray-paint­ed name and lit­tered deck, the rust­ed steel hull was vis­i­bly thin at the water­line. It was a derelict I’d not­ed in my wak­ing life. I’d cringed walk­ing by. That doesn’t look like a boat that’s ready to leave the dock.

 

There is noth­ing sub­tle about my subconscious.

 

I woke from that dream know­ing my book and I were going to be okay. Not only okay: know­ing this was for the best.

 

Yes, this was a shit­ty expe­ri­ence. It hurt. But my nat­ur­al ten­den­cy is – as author Heather Lende urges – to “find the good,” and it didn’t take too long a look to rec­og­nize this hurt was one of ego. Rejec­tion lands so per­son­al­ly: fear of what it says about me, my work; fear of what peo­ple will think. Pamela’s firm assur­ance (“This is not your book”) pulled me through this ini­tial response of ego, through the fear and pain. The friends who’ve accom­pa­nied me on this jour­ney – you, read­ing this – have always embod­ied love and encour­age­ment. How could I imag­ine you’d receive this news with any­thing oth­er than compassion?

 

So I find the good:

 

Hooked sold on pro­pos­al, as an idea and a few sam­ple chap­ters. After con­ver­sa­tions with a hand­ful of inter­est­ed edi­tors, I chose the one who most respond­ed to Hooked’s fem­i­nist themes. That she was with a remark­able pub­lish­er, home to count­less authors and books I admire, was a seri­ous con­fi­dence boost­er for this first-time author.

 

Mid­way through our work togeth­er, my edi­tor took a job with anoth­er pub­lish­ing house. I didn’t think much of it, assured that her new employ­er would allow her to see pre-exist­ing con­tracts through. Maybe that didn’t end up being the case; I don’t know and ulti­mate­ly, it doesn’t mat­ter. What I know is that I came into this part­ner­ship with lit­tle more than a dream of a book and now, thanks to her ini­tial enthu­si­asm for and belief in the sto­ry, that book exists. As those 319 care­ful­ly craft­ed pages and I move for­ward on our own, I’ll nev­er for­get the impact Hooked’s first edi­tor had on both.

 

I can’t find the good with­out see­ing you. You gave me the courage to pur­sue this work. You give me the con­vic­tion to continue.

 

If you’ve asked me about my book recent­ly, I’ve lied to you. The con­tract had to be for­mal­ly revoked, our divorce final­ized, before I could talk about it or make pub­lic this post. So I’ve spent the past six months lying – to the barista at my favorite cof­fee shop, to the beloved teacher who is Hooked’s god­moth­er, to my step­mom who opined that no news must be good news. To every lov­ing friend who’s cham­pi­oned Hooked. Over and over again, I answered with a shrug and a smile, forc­ing a casu­al tone, I don’t know, I haven’t heard any­thing, I’m just going fishin’… That, dear ones, has been the hard­est part of this expe­ri­ence. Writ­ing mem­oir is about truth-telling – valu­ing, believ­ing in, com­mit­ting to the truth as I know it. Whether by direct false­hood or omis­sion, I have hat­ed lying to you.

 

Of the few friends I told in per­son, some ques­tioned my need to pub­li­cize this news. Post­ing this was impor­tant to me. Despite my silence over the past year, we made this blog an hon­est place, a safe place, through years of inti­mate pub­lic con­ver­sa­tions. I want­ed this to be a space of online vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty and trust. Your will­ing­ness to reply in kind made that pos­si­ble. How could I not share this with you, in this way?

 

I wish I could have come out to you soon­er. I’m glad to be here now.

 

 

Fairweathers in Fog

 

 

His­to­ry repeat­ed itself. As the North Pacif­ic received a social ser­vice refugee all those years ago, she took me back in this sum­mer of need. I went fish­ing. I again lost myself to the work and the moun­tains, to long days and mar­itime med­i­ta­tions. I prac­ticed being present with Joel and friends in a way that I haven’t been for the past three years. I made a plan for Hooked’s next steps, deter­mined to make sure this paper ship is sea­wor­thy, and allowed peri­od­ic waves of sad­ness, gar­ner­ing strength for the work ahead. Prepar­ing – once again – to get shit done.