University of Texas at El Paso ScholarWorks@UTEP Open Access Theses & Dissertations 2019-01-01 I'm Never Fine Joseph S. Lezza University of Texas at El Paso Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.utep.edu/open_etd Part of the Creative Writing Commons Recommended Citation Lezza, Joseph S., "I'm Never Fine" (2019). Open Access Theses & Dissertations. 2870. https://digitalcommons.utep.edu/open_etd/2870 This is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UTEP. It has been accepted for inclusion in Open Access Theses & Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UTEP. For more information, please contact [email protected]. “I’M NEVER FINE” JOSEPH S. LEZZA Master’s Program in Creative Writing APPROVED: _______________________________________ Nelson Cardenas, Ph. D., Chair _______________________________________ Tim Hernandez, M.F.A _______________________________________ Liz Scheid, M.F.A. _______________________________________ Stephen L. Crites, Jr., Ph.D. Dean of the Graduate School “I’M NEVER FINE” by JOSEPH S. LEZZA, B.A. THESIS Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at El Paso in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF FINE ARTS Department of Creative Writing THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT EL PASO December 2019 Acknowledgments “Death, the Moon & Dry-Rubbed Steak” first appeared in Still: The Journal (Winter 2018). “The Simple Guide to Redefinition in Oslo, Norway” first appeared in Fearsome Critters (Volume 1). “Little Murders” first appeared in Cleaning Up Glitter (Volume 1, Issue 2). “The Space Between the Tenses” will appear in the tenth anniversary issue of Stoneboat Literary Journal (Winter 2020). “Wading Toward Willamette” will appear in The Hopper (February 2020). The author wishes to thank these publications for their appreciation and concurrence for the aforementioned pieces to be included in this collection. In addition, the author wishes to express immense gratitude to any artists or individuals who influenced – directly or indirectly – this writing process, including: Cheryl Strayed, Joan Didion, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, R.E.M., William Shakespeare, John D’Agata, Lia Purpura, David Sedaris, Eleni Sikelianos, Nora Ephron and Alanis Morissette. Special thanks to my unofficial focus group: Erin Roach, Kelly Bergin, Patty Montagno and Jessica Granger. Intensely special thanks to Mom for providing access to her Pulitzer-caliber journals, for her generosity in resources, her belief when mine was lacking, her strength (whatever slight percentage I inherited) and, chiefly, for giving me the space I needed to write this. Sincerest appreciations are offered to the faculty and staff of the UTEP Creative Writing department and, above all, my thesis committee. To Liz Scheid for bringing the words “lyric” and “essay” together in a manner I will never forgive. To Tim Hernandez, the exemplification of how to gather a story. And, without question, to Dr. Nelson Cardenas, for indulging my calls and copious emails, for his thoughts, his challenges and for demanding that I quit apologizing. Finally, much love to the good people at Starbucks for keeping me in caffeine and napkins for the last two years. iii Preface I. The Project This is not a book about loss. I wish to put that to rest before we go any further. Much as I thought it might be before beginning this journey, like almost every other project on which I’ve embarked, concept and execution resemble one another only to the extent of form and shadow. What is there to say about the actual act of losing, really? It sucks. There. There’s your book. In the summer of 2013, I lost my father after a fifteen-month battle with pancreatic cancer. From bedside through denouement, I took it on the chin and indulged the formalities, playing the stoic, dutiful son right up to the moment they shelved him behind a marble slab. Then, after five days, I went back to work as if being sad for a sixth day would’ve been gratuitous. I stopped crying, I kept my nose down and I buried a silent scream under papers and spreadsheets that never killed the noise, not fully. This was a noise not born of grief or melancholia, but of pure, unfiltered anger. All of a sudden, I was powered by it. And, hard as it was to control, its weirdly miraculous side effect was a complete intolerance for complacency. Whereas before, I’d labored in a soul-crushing, monotonous role under an officious and unforgiving micromanager out of a fear of sacrificing my steady paycheck, soon afterward, I found myself unable to stomach a single thing that felt out of place. Creatively starved, I hocked my paltry wares to anyone who’d take a meeting with me until someone saw something worth testing. I took a job as an assistant to an executive who fostered my ambition, I mined opportunities to create, I fell back in love with writing, a pursuit I’d let atrophy whilst embroiled in caregiving and subsequent bereavement. Through it, I rediscovered the lifesaving properties of satire and the fulfillment of a well-constructed sentence. But, it wasn’t long before the limitations of client branded copy and sixty second digital vignettes proved suffocating. iv I wanted to go back to school, to test my capabilities, to subvert my own reflexes, to find the ceiling and then smash it. At UTEP, I entered believing I was creature of fiction and, like most breakthroughs, found myself summarily punched in the face by something called the “lyric essay.” In my very first semester, I was challenged to use my own life as content. Problem was, I’d never found myself all that interesting. For a first semester final project, I chose (aka “acquiesced”) to write about a particular breakup, one that persisted in prickling my nerve endings even years post-denouement. Worried there wasn’t enough meat to meet the seventeen- page requirement, I decided to be brutal, not just to he who had wronged me but equally to myself. I opined, page upon page, the mistreatment on his part, yes, while identifying each confession, each red flag provided that, if heeded, would’ve saved me unneeded emotional anguish. Twenty-seven pages later, I was left with not so much an exploration as an autopsy; an in-depth, painstaking disassembly of an event revealing all the factors that contributed to its manifestation. It was ugly and beautiful and fulfilling and, most remarkably, it brought about an existential uncoupling that no other approach had. For the first time, I’d felt the surrender, that the page had agreed to take a portion of the pain if I’d obliged it with honesty instead of victimization. With my end of the bargain upheld, I moved forward a few pounds lighter than when I’d began, maybe not free of it but no longer quite so moored. It had been a therapy the likes of which I’d never known, a calling my ears had finally filtered from the static. Throughout my tenure in this program, across a variety of genres, I came to a quick realization that the majority of my work shared a common theme. A great many of my fictional characters came forward as wounded individuals, battling with life or some level of loss. My poetry spoke of grief, confusion and, yes, a little bit of hope. My essays showed themselves, directly or indirectly, to be drawn from trauma. And, there came a point where I could no longer deny that there was a story begging to be written. I swallowed the notion that there would be no v unabridged commitment to any other creative pursuit until I confronted that which I could not stifle. I had not dealt with losing my father, not in the manner warranted. I’d moved on quickly in an attempt to not become a person governed by sorrow, yet it turned out the head of state I’d elected was puppet for a cunning regime whose policies I fell subject to anyway. Knowing this, it was undeniable that there was something to unpack; that, six years later, it was time to revisit a dark period of my history and reexamine it from a different perspective. Much like that lyric essay in year one, I’d need to write my way to a new understanding and maybe – just maybe – let some of it go. To write about one’s own life, in any respect, is an act of vanity. It is to say that what has happened is of such significance it must be amplified, proliferated. This does not dismiss the legitimacy of the exercise, nor is vanity its ruling principle. But, it was necessary to acknowledge that flat out and keep it in the back of my mind as a bumper to prevent my ball from rolling into the gutter of superficiality. To do this project the justice it deserved required the removal of pride and an intimate relationship with humility. If I was to peel back the layers then it was crucial that I take a firm stance against glorification or alchemy. I am no hero. I am no victim. And, I am certainly no oracle. I have no instruction to provide the reader, no formula or chart to map their own personal journey of grief. I’m not presumptuous enough to believe that something so painfully individual could have a universal solution, no matter what any self-help book or daily affirmation website would have one believe. What I had was a laundry list of mistakes, slip-ups and unflattering tableaus sprinkled among the few things I actually I did right. I have a record of malfeasance and a few good deeds.