Trailer Wife

It was a big night for Oregon alumni - both Ducks and Beavers. The 2009 Civil War had pretty high stakes - a ticket to Pasadena and the Rose Bowl for the winners, and a lackluster trip to Vegas for the losers.

Watching the game tonight (Sam declared he would be unable to move from the couch for the duration of the game, a not so subtle hint that Gus and I would be on our own), I was struck with this concept of winning and losing. In my entire athletic career, I have never been a winner. That is not to say that I didn't win games - because I did. The Lebanon High School Warriors came within a few games every year of the State Tournament, even making it to the finals the year I graduated. And my one year of junior college volleyball had a similar season. What I've never experienced is that final win - the one that defines the effort, bolsters bragging rights, stamps you with an inexplicable confidence that lingers long after the match has been called.

I've always sort of assumed that those wins, the defining ones, are reserved for the elite. And let's face it, the Beavers have always been scrappers (despite Oregon's Blount, thug in residence) and the Ducks have always been rather coddled if you ask me. And although you long desperately, almost romantically, for the underdog to win (Boise State over OK in 2007 comes to mind) there is a reason why this is exceptional. It's because they almost never do.

And that's what makes me think there is something to the crazy sports psychology thrown around among Phil Knight's disciples and the like. To win, you must first convince yourself that you are a winner. You must espouse a kind of arrogance that claims victory in spite of the obstacles, not because of them, truly believe in your inherent superiority, and, in a word, walk the proverbial walk.

My point? To be a successful writer, I think, one must couch the customary, self-deprecating pomp of the artist. I'm beginning to think that if I start to work with my all-business, left-brain sensibility, I might see better results. If I channel a little more Joyce Carol Oates (gagging a little here) and a little less yet-to-be-discovered ingenue, it could be that my output will not only increase, but that my creative perspective shifts as well. As much as I would like to live, eat and breath art for art's sake, I'm at a point where life is actually happening, intruding, interjecting at every turn. Diapers must be changed. Floors must be swept of flung green beans. Minimum payments must be made.

So I think I've decided to do the MFA. But I am determined to do it purposefully, with a specific goal in mind, without wasting any time on image-improvement, gut-level strategies, or feeding that damned underdog.

(No offense, Beavs.)