M.C. Easton

The Only Way Out Is Up

“It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we are free to do anything,” a character in Fight Club says. And it’s true. Failure gets a bad rap because people don’t understand what it means. We assume that failure is permanent. Final. And so is success. As if these are static–rather than momentary ups and downs along theContinue reading “The Only Way Out Is Up”

Courage in All Its Forms

I love this painting. It hangs on a white wall in a spare black frame in the Museum of Modern Art at 11 West 53rd Street, Manhattan. Kazimir Malevich painted it, probably in 1912, amidst Russia’s bloody and prolonged transition from imperial state to democratic republic. With Russia’s loss of the Russo-Japanese War in 1905,Continue reading “Courage in All Its Forms”

The Unanswerable Question

Toni Morrison once said that she often begins her novels with a question. Something difficult to answer. Maybe even impossible. And in a society that values the final product above process, ends before means, facts over wisdom–this seems revolutionary to me. During my college years, I had a mentor who believed we all had “seminalContinue reading “The Unanswerable Question”

Aim Small, Miss Small

So a friend told me each time I lined up a shot on the pool table. What he meant was don’t just target the cue ball. Pick a specific point on the surface where I want to leave a chalk mark. And choose a specific point on the ball I’m aiming to sink. Know exactlyContinue reading “Aim Small, Miss Small”

How Much

The questions I’m tormenting myself with at the moment are: “How much is too much?” and “How much is enough?” “A word count, a page count–it’s so arbitrary,” one writer told me last week over her historical fiction novel. “And if I don’t meet it, I feel miserable. Why would I do that to myself?”Continue reading “How Much”

A Question of Faith

Years ago, when I was still in the church, I was having a conversation with an atheist. “But you have faith in something,” I assured her. “Everyone believes in something.” “Nope. Nothing.” She was 43, a mother of one of my friends, and I was 18. Brash, confident, always ready for a debate. “But youContinue reading “A Question of Faith”

Family Tree

“In such a dissolved society,” novelist Jack Remick said, “Americans are hungry for cohesive units.” In “a nation of outsiders,” we flutter like moths toward anything that resembles family. So true. But how did we get this way? And what can lead us out of it? Thinking over my own life, I see I’ve hadContinue reading “Family Tree”

The Loneliness of Nonconformity

Edward Scissorhands (1990) is perhaps the quintessential fairy tale of the artist. In Edward’s quest for belonging, we can all find something of ourselves. Isolated and undeniably different, he is willing to give up his scissor-hands to be more like everyone else. He smiles with sweet, earnest boyishness at those who ask if he’d likeContinue reading “The Loneliness of Nonconformity”

Ex-Mormon Girl Buys Tobacco

For the first time. Ever. So, I was completing a kayak run when I saw a waterfront shop awning: Union Cigar Society. In the window, a banner in Italic script read “Fine Cigars and Accessories.” Now, I’ve only just been introduced to cigars in 2012. I had never smoked anything until this spring. And then,Continue reading “Ex-Mormon Girl Buys Tobacco”

On Love, Autonomy, and the Limitations of Feminism

Recently, I’ve been reading Germaine Greer’s The Female Eunuch (1970). And she strikes a nerve with me when she writes, “Our society encourages the substitution of addiction for spontaneous pleasure and specifically encourages women to foster dependencies which will limit their mates’ tendencies to roving and other forms of instability” (176). Men in turn, she argues, areContinue reading “On Love, Autonomy, and the Limitations of Feminism”