I am struggling with the task of writing a second personal statement. First there’s the issue of a title. Should I call it my Very Personal Statement? Maybe last year’s essay, titled just Personal Statement, was not revealing enough?

This whole follow-up application thing feels a bit like appearing before the American Idol judges for the second year in a row. I am the contestant who wore a Statue of Liberty costume and sang New York, New York the first time around. Now I can see that the gimmick was a mistake and have chosen a Dianne Van Furstenberg dress and knee high boots for this year’s audition. Surely, last year, it was the outfit and not the talent that inspired rejection. I will sing something by Mary J. Blige. Maybe Gonna Breakthrough. Mary J. – she’s a survivor, no stranger to adversity and the occasional kick in the pants.

And then there’s the issue of new writing samples. It’s hard to call what I’ve been working towards in the last year ‘new’. It’s more revision and continuation, a long slog towards novel completion, a bundling together of two story ideas into one that matters and makes sense and allows the writing to roll on. Reasonable Doubt is a double-helix, a braid, a marriage of Habeas Corpus and The Weight of Two. Words on the page have accumulated and it now reads 90 pages long.

In truth, after last year’s rejection, I stopped writing for awhile. I cast the whole habit aside.

Leslie Epstein’s kindly written and complimentary rejection arrived in April and, immediately after its receipt, I found myself feeling a little lazy about the mail. Days and days went by between visits to the box. The mailman patiently crammed in bills and catalogs until the whole thing was so completely backed up with unwanted correspondence that he was forced to drive the postal jeep up to the back door. He would toss fliers and tax forms and digital photography catalogs into the mudroom.

But it was the second rejection letter that really sent me into the ditch. Just when I began recovering from the first No Thank You,, I received another. One day in May, when I trudged to the street to unclog the box, I found a slim little envelope from BU’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, a sliver of hope there among Friday and Saturday and Monday’s mail. My heart leaped. I was overcome with a great jolt of adrenaline. I dropped the stack of mail on the driveway and tore open the slender letter. Could it be a correction to the previous rejection? Perhaps a notice that some other applicant had died? An invitation to to take their spot in next year’s graduate class. I slid trembling fingers beneath the envelope flap, all the while, practicing the joyful tone with which I would deliver the good news to my unsuspecting family, who had all grown weary of my lamenting the rejection.

But, I found no enclosed correction, no change of mind, instead I found another rejection letter. This time, the denial came from the head of the graduate school of Arts and Sciences. I guess Patricia Schiavoni, in her infinite wisdom as admissions personnel, decided that the rejection letter I received from the Creative Writing Department was not sufficient negative correspondence. Perhaps she likes to get a slam in whenever possible, following up all department-rejections with her own general dis. “Ya da ya da ya da…careful review… sorry to inform you… must deny admissions to even highly qualified candidates… regret that the decision was not favorable…”

I could have shouted, “Thanks for the echo, Patricia. It didn’t feel like REAL rejection until you followed up with your own official word on the situation.”

As if all this rejection weren’t bad enough, my e-mail delivered the cruelest blow. Just one day after receiving my second BU rejection, I found this little gem of an offer in my Inbox,

Dear CCE and her lovely and intelligent business partner,

Blaine from our Knoxville office forwarded me your info.
We are currently casting hosts for a new home improvement series for WEtv and are looking for a hip, attractive, accessible, charismatic, credible GARDENDER/LANDSCAPER. Production will take place in Miami/Ft. Lauderdale, FL in Spring/Summer/Fall 2007. Are you interested in being considered?

If you could get me video footage and pics and bios for each of you by the end of this week, that would be ideal.

I look forward to hearing from you,

Thank you,
Very Powerful Producer in New York

I wept remembering how cute I looked in those knee high rubber wellies and the great baby-tee with the company logo in orange splashed brightly across the chest. I wondered what had possibly possessed me to close the Landscape Design company I owned with a friend and move to suburban New England in order to macerate in my own suburban juices. I cursed the Gods who must have put it in my head that it would be a good idea to renovate an antique home by myself in the woods. I banged my head against walls papered in 80 year old damask and considered a move back to South Florida just to shoot this video, but I was New England-in-Winter pale and I’d forgotten the Latin names of all major palm varieties.

So I decided to pitch the powerful producers of WEtv another idea. I suggested their camera crew set-up here in my new town and follow me around my house while I type witty comments on writer’s blogs while wearing my bathrobe and occasionally put on yoga pants and walk the dog. I suggested that their audience might really enjoy the footage of me plunging our antique toilet for the tenth time in one week. I explained that this is something I can do one handed, while smiling and explaining the function of certain toilet parts like flush valves and O rings. I promised to make the show cute and light hearted. I even offered to get a new bathrobe. I promised to highlight my hair.

I dashed off a lovely e-mail pitching my ideas and waited for WEtv to get back to me, hoping that the life I’d chosen sounded as interesting as the life I once led – the one in which I had I catered to the elite and lunatic of Miami and drove a big white SUV I called the Bloom Beast to tropical nurseries and dragged back lovely matching Crinum Lilies the size of my dining room table for the illegal immigrant help to plant in the yards of a husband and wife team that were living in separate homes because, the year previous, he had taken up with the female tenant living in their carriage house.

And quietly, as I awaited WEtv’s response, I developed plant lists, an inventory of local providers and a stable of contractors who know their deciduous shrubs and how to lay a stone wall. But it was insufficient stab at self repair. While I familiarized myself with Zone 6 horticulture, the words kept coming. It’s something I couldn’t prevent from happening. Like Winter or the flu. It seemed beyond me. A new story about Faith Shepherd and her daughter Laura began to take shape. The garden I was hired to design for the Williams on Holt Avenue sort of languished, neglected and forgotten. There was no passion I could muster for the privet hedge we would plant along the eastern property line that could rival the need I felt to tell Faith and Laura’s story. It’s just wasn’t even close.

I felt guilt and concern for the characters I had left on the page, abandoned there without resolution. I returned to Habeas Corpus and The Weight of Two and could see how the two were obviously connected bits of the same story begging to be merged. Claire Bensley, her guilty father, the girl found dead in the road, all parts of a story that needed to be told. Screw the William’s and their privet hedge, I thought. This stuff cannot be suppressed.

And so here I am, a year later, doing what has to be done. It is quite beyond me, the need to write day after day. But still, I crave an audience. Nothing as glamorous as a television audience, only the company of like minded people consumed by the need to tell fictional tales. I thought I could adapt to the failure that was last year’s application in a way that conveniently disguised my initial intentions. But then it became obvious that this MFA is not a goal that I’ve ignored or abandoned, it’s more a goal that has ignored or abandoned me. And all the passivity of the previous phrase just doesn’t suit me.

So have another look. You may pass again on what you deem minor or trifling talent but, then again, you might see something that resembles a future. Here’s hoping.

Few of us ever take the time to thank the people that have made a difference in our lives. We assume they know their worth when, in fact, a letter like the one I am about to share is the reward all teachers dream of and few receive.

Here’s an excerpt:

Dear Mrs. W,

I am a teacher of visually impaired children and one of my students is learning braille as she suffers a progressive eye condition…Working with her has brought back fond memories of you.
Forty six years ago I was in your second grade class. I struggled with reading and you were not only my favorite teacher but a God Send. Out of the goodness of your heart and because of your genuine concern for my future, you tutored me after school. The way you worked with me did not make me feel like a ‘dumbie,’ but made me feel very special. I thought it was a treat to dust the erasers and wash your chalkboard and I remember you used my silhouette for a spelling bulletin board. You, without a doubt, had the greatest impact on my foundation for literacy and for that I am eternally grateful. I award you Top Teacher of My Life!

With Sincere Gratitude,
S.C.

The fact that this woman took the time to write such a moving letter to an old lady makes me weepy with the justice and the beauty of it. I have shared the note with a friend who has just gone back to work as a third grade teacher in the inner city. Her job is exhausting and difficult. She struggles daily, wondering if leaving her own children everyday to help these needy kids is worth the sacrifice. I wish for her a letter like this when she turns 85. Her work is necessary and important. She will be the Top Teacher of Many Lives. Let’s hope that someday one of these kids will take the time to write her a letter of thanks.

I am thankful O has decided to pause and ponder and strategize a way around this thing. I’m hopeful that it’s a sign of self awareness and confidence. But, alas, it may well be that I scared the crap out of him with my warnings about retaliation and the results of earning a reputation as a tattle-tale. Nevertheless, these are valuable life lessons. No one likes a narc. And while bullying should not be allowed, should not exist in a perfect world with perfect children and perfect schools and perfectly positioned and attentive adult supervisors in the form of teachers and bus drivers and crossing guards, we all know that this longed-for perfection is not the reality. I believe that the sooner my kids learn to handle the taunts and tortures that are an inevitable by-product of childhood, the better off they’ll be.

So we shall see how this pans out and, just to make you all feel a little better about my decision to let it roll, let me say that my O is very large for his age.

And there’s my own personal experience influencing my parenting decisions. The whole bus-bullying situation not only reminds me of having to apologize to Becky Rhettman back in grade school, it also reminds me that I, too, was bullied. It was seventh grade and there were three mean girls, Bridgette, Francesca and Lisa and they had it in for me and my two chums. Like Brian and Max, they were a year older than us and, now, with hindsight I can see, threatened by the utter cool factor exuded by me and my two BFF’s. They were trying to establish dominance by way of prank calling (ahhh, the days before caller i.d.) and threatening to beat us up at football games or in the seventh grade hallway between classes. (Yes, some girls do threaten violence but only Townie girls).

And finally, rather than involving my parents, I took the intiative. I figured if they beat me up once, then there’s little to no fun to be had in the second lashing. And if things turned out in my favor, then I’d have the upperhand for awhile. I saw it as a win-win. The torture would stop no matter the outcome. And it helped that one of the three biatches rode our bus home from school without the support of her, big-haired, frosted lipstick wearing, gangster friends. She was isolated. She was quiet and retreating without her posse. So, one afternoon as we rode home from school, I challenged her to what should, for all intents and purposes, be considered a duel.

With all the bluster and bravado that an eleven year girl can muster, I suggested she put up or shut up. I clambered off the bus at her stop and said, “Let’s do it.” I was ready. “Bring it on.”

And of course she sort of quietly skulked off and evaded my advances. Her bark was a whole lot worse than her bite. As I remember it, that was sort of the end of the prank calls and the taunting and the threats.

I’m sure there’s a little revisionist history at work here. It all seems to cinematic, too tight a denoument for real life. But the important point is that I survived, my friends survived and Lisa, Bridgette and Francesca are still probably living in that small and stultifying town where we grew up. They are bar maids or mechanics or professional wrestlers.

As well that ends well…

You have ruined my day. And, if My Better Half is not careful to avoid hazardous situations until we get this whole disagreement resolved, you may also earn the distinction of having ruined my life. Don’t you think it’s horrible enough to lose your spouse (never mind having to deal with that sorrow)? But then, imagine his dying on the day that his policy lapsed due to payment disagreements. There are countless ways that he could meet his end between now and when we get this whole thing resolved. He could be driving down the highway when some drunk and underage fourteen year old loses control of his car and drifts across the median, killing My Better Half instantly in a head-on collision. He could sit down in the barber’s chair and receive a nail to the back of the neck, delivered from the muzzle of a nail gun toting contractor replacing the studs in the adjacent retail space – true and unfortunate stories both of them. Shit happens. Shit happens to me.

I mean really, who do you think you are making me wade through twenty minutes of pre-recorded messaging only to decline to speak with me as I am not the policy holder but the policy holder’s murderous spouse who clearly intends to knock him off and is just checking to be sure the millions are MINE, ALL MINE before I deal the blow? (Are you upset about the arsenic comments? I mean that was then and this is now. I’ve since trained him to make the bed and unload the dishwasher and see the kids off to school at least once a week. Do you think I’d just give up on all that hard work?)

Didn’t I press all the right buttons on the phone? I entered the policy number and the date of birth and the last four digits of the social security number and I even endured having your system disconnect the fucking line twice after diligently punching in all the proper information. I called back. I waited through whole minutes of pre-recorded, chirpy messages about your being so glad we’ve chosen your corporation as our life insurance provider. Was that all bullshit? You don’t seem glad to be our life insurance provider.

And how dare you give me the little speech about being unable to discuss details of the policy with anyone other than the policy holder. You are, in fact, “our” life insurance provider because, though the insured is in fact My Better Half, the insurance policy is really mine. I went through months and months of agony just getting My Better Half to call you, and then there was the full year of nagging him about filling out the paperwork while it languished on his desk and, of course, there was the issue of the physical. He hates needles and really, really hates having his cholesterol checked because then I deny him red meat and whole fat dairy products.

I mean, truly, what does he care whether his policy lapses today or yesterday or sometime in the future. If and when it’s needed, he will in fact be dead. Dead people are a generally apathetic group with few needs and fewer worries. So the need is mine, all mine. And I am the payer of the bills, the punctual, organized manager of the Madmarriage family, the individual to whom you can give thanks for all the on-time payments that have crossed your desk before you decided to change the policy number and confuse things.

Now, at the very least, you are to be blamed for the blow-up fight My Better Half and I will certainly have later tonight when I am forced to nag him, once again, to call you and straighten out this mess before his fragile life is snuffed out by fire or choking or aneurysm. And I hold you personally responsible for my insomnia that will surely plague me until I find a way to make him call you and endure your number prompting, irritating messages and disconnections all to resolve the confusion surrounding his death. There’s just some things a person doesn’t feel a burning drive to confront, head on, and one of them is the terms of their own demise. Shouldn’t you, a woman who deals in making payouts after tragic deaths, day after long and sorrowful day, know this already?

Sincerely,
CCE, Potentially single and destitute mother to two children, two cats, one dog and two fish to whom you’ve denied the millions she is due on the death of her spouse all because she in not the “policy holder” with whom you can speak about such things as your arbitraily changing the account number on the life insurance policy that’s been in place since 1999.)