Details, details

Some of them golden.

On a rainy day when I think it should be snowing, my students and I talk about details.

“There are the not so good details,” I tell them, circling the tables where they’re gathered, watching and waiting. I think we are far enough into the semester where they trust me, but it’s hard to say.

“The ones that are clunky and cliche,” I add, taking a line straight out of Don’t Forget to Write, a slim manual on helping people put down stories written by 826 National. I found the book in a used bookstore in downtown Ann Arbor on another rainy day - this one nearing evening. I thought it should’ve been snowing then, too.

Jesse and I left work early that day to celebrate our anniversary. We had no plans other than to walk around and get dinner. I told him that I wanted to start at Comet Coffee and Jesse, quite used to giving me most of what I want, obliged. We were in the coffee shop, so small like a pocket in a pair of work overalls, and Jesse was choosing which tea he’d have when Hadley called.

“I got in! I got in!” she screamed, and how do I describe the look on Jesse’s face upon hearing his 9lb 10oz blue-eyed baby, the one that, when he held her for the first time and said her name and that all was well because he has here; he is her dad, and she stopped crying and now 18 years later exclaims she got into a college she was sure she wasn’t going to get into? How do I describe his face?

I was 22, and in my bedroom on a stifling August at golden hour when the phone rang. The phone in my room was pink and it matched my Laura Ashley bedspread, the one I picked out when I turned 16. It was the prinicpal at Covenant Christian School in Mishawauka, Indiana offering me a teaching job. If I wanted it, I would teach a split 5/6th grade class of twelve students.

My dad was in the backyard, probably wearing a Chicago Bears t-shirt and a pair of shorts - out of his suit and tie and home after a day of work. I peeked my head out of the backdoor. “Hey dad,” I called. “I got the job.”

His face was the same as Jesse’s when Hadley told him about college.

“Those are the useful details,” I continue, explaining the importance of not dressing up every single detail jsut because we can. “That’s just flexing,” I tell them.

The bookstore Jesse and I went to is exactly what all used bookstores are: musty with piles of books everywhere, creaky floors, drafty, and I love every part of it. A giant poster of Gandolf greets patrons when they walk in, and I wonder if his presence has something to do with the store’s name. A few steps in is a display table. No reviews, no boasts that these are new releases. These are other details I love. The books are displayed because they’ve been written, because someone in the store thinks they’re special and it’s our choice to pick them up, turn them over and decide if we’re up to finding out about the treasure, too.

I picked up Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout and Just Kids by Patti Smith from the table and make my way to the back of the store where the Young Adult section is. Last time I was here, I found the entire set of To All The Boys… and picked them up for Hadley and Harper. OK fine. For me, too.

I guess it’s been ten years now when my friend Stephanie and I spent an afternoon in a used bookstore picking out books for our 8th grade students. They were graduation gifts.

“We’re concerned you’ll set a precedent,” some administrator or board member warned us.

“I sure hope we do,” I said back.

The nerve of Stephanie and I sending our students off with stories we think they’ll enjoy. And without proclaiming an objective! Or standard! We didn’t even consider the IB trait that would wrangle them in! The carelessness - the outright recklesness - of Stephanie and I!

We took our stack of stories to a bar and over pints, wrote each student a note about why we picked that book specifically for them. I remember being a little teary and telling Stephanie I was sad to see this group go. “What a surprise they are,” I said, and we laughed at the wild bunch of students that cracked our hearts right open.

I remember the weather that day, too. It was Spring in DC and that means Cherry Blossoms and sunshine but not that day. It was raining and cold and I was annoyed because I don’t think a season ought to present itself as something that it’s not. These things take time and I’ll never learn that. It’ll be a surprise at each seasons’ new release.

“And then you have the golden details,” I tell my students. The details that smack you in the face and leave a mark. The sort that make you see the world - or someone in it - more clearly.

So we look for these kinds of details in books and essays. We do it for our own writing, too.

“I’m happy we need useful details,” one student says.

“Yeah,” another one says. “It’s good that not everything needs to be ‘extra’” she says.

“You’ll lose the reader,” I say and then make them stand up and put their desks in a circle. This is another thing I’m not sure I’m supposed to do in a college level course but lately I’ve been asking myself: What would I do if I trusted myself? I do this when I’m unsure about what the right thing to do is. In this case my answer was, “I think 20-year-old Callie would have loved this.” So I do it.

I pass out yellow legal pads with a not so great detail on it. The students need to turn it into a useful detail, then pass the pad to their peer. They’ll write a golden detail.

Silence, save for the swish of the pad being passed and the hush of pens moving. Soon, they share what they have: The smell of a grandparent is “like the bread he used to make.” It is, “safe, like the days she used to read to me.” At the funeral home, “the coffin was made of mahogany,” and “you could feel the sorrowful souls roaming the halls and tethered to the walls.”

Yes, yes I tell them. That’s it. That’s what you do. Now try again. Keep trying. Keep releasing your old self new.