Legacy

We all want to leave something behind, some evidence that our passing through was not a waste of time. The common human legacy is family but through a variety of circumstances, I missed the dance. I have no grandkids running around, no softball games to go to, no advice to offer. Like many artists, I ended up embracing my work as my children. And so my legacy, such as it is, can be found in my archives.

The good news is that my archives exist and are accessible. Not every writer is so fortunate. I'm especially fortunate that a librarian at the University of North Carolina became fan enough of my work in hypertext to offer me unlimited bandwidth at their electronic resource Ibiblio, so I might put my digital films online. This has been a blessing. (My hard copy archives are in Special Collections at the University of Oregon).

The bad news is that the archives are mostly ignored. But that's to be expected. Notice I didn't say "totally" ignored, and this is an important difference. It only takes one to engage my writing in the way I want my legacy to work. And this has already happened once.

I want my work to inspire other work. This worked out perfectly when Geoffrey Sirc read an essay of mine long after it was written and was so inspired by its theme that he expanded it in a book (more here). This is the highest form of flattery. So as long as the archives exist and are accessible, someone else might similarly be inspired, and the good fight continues down the road.

I have faith this will happen. This might be delusional -- but faith is faith. My work will exist as my legacy.

There is another legacy I leave, the legacy of any teacher in having influenced others. Indeed, I've been mentor to several younger writers. This is another way to continue the good fight down the road.

I confess, I miss not having a soccer game or little league game to go to, where I could root for a grandkid, but my life strayed so far from the usual cultural pattern that I'm not surprised this happened. Indeed, the miracle is that I'm still here, I'm still fighting, as best I can, the good fight. It makes no sense that I'm here, in my view, that I escaped what my closest friends did not escape, that I outlived them, that I escaped all manner of small tragedies during the long reckless years of my youth. What shocks me most about my life is that I survived this long.

So here I am, practicing my drop thumbing and getting ready to cheer the PSU women's basketball team on this afternoon, looking forward to Selection Sunday tomorrow, turning my attention to a pile of student projects to grade, glancing over to our dog Sketch to cheer me up, as he always does, a born comic that rat terrier; here I am, remaining in the good graces of the gods. Amen.