Student Spotlight: Aimee DeGroat

Interview

What do you write? 

I write Maine based stories, mostly fiction with an under­cur­rent of non­fic­tion.  I have written numer­ous short stories and poems and am now trying to expand my reper­toire to include a novel.

Is there an author or artist who has most pro­found­ly influ­enced your work? 

It would be dif­fi­cult to pick one, but when we speak of the pro­found, I would choose Tom Robbins.  I write nothing like him, however, the book Still Life With Wood­peck­er has had a tremen­dous influ­ence on my life.  I own two copies and they have trav­eled with me all over the country.  The first was given to me by my brother when I was in high school. The second was given to me by my future husband and is signed by Mr. Robbins. The book address­es the ques­tion “how to make love stay,” but on a larger scale it talks about choice. Tom Robbins says “There are only two mantras, yum and yuck, mine is yum.”  I think it is pro­found to under­stand that each person’s per­cep­tion of their own life expe­ri­ence is a con­scious choice.  I, like Mr. Robbins, have chosen to per­ceive it as “yum.”

Why did you choose Stonecoast? 

The reason I chose Stonecoast is tied to my favorite Stonecoast memory.  When I first started dating my partner, we took a trip to Wolfe’s Neck State Park.  We ended up con­tin­u­ing down the road and dis­cov­ered the stone house. Curious, we googled it and dis­cov­ered it was where the Stonecoast MFA res­i­den­cy was held. “Someday, you will go here,” he said.  We creeped around the prop­er­ty, admired the build­ing, made out a little in his car, and then decided to head home, but his car would not start. I had to push his Saab down the hill so he could jump it.  We were both laugh­ing like crazy, and I thought “this is a great guy.”  He could have gotten upset or felt embar­rassed, but instead he seemed happy and joyful.  I decided his mantra must also be “yum.”  A few years later he took me back to the stone house and pro­posed to me on the back deck.

What do you hope to accom­plish in the future?

I think all writers want recog­ni­tion, heck, we want a Pul­litzer, but the recog­ni­tion I really want is the recog­ni­tion of self.  I want to connect with my readers so deeply that they see them­selves in me and my writing.

If you could have written one book, story, or poem that already exists, which would you choose?

The bible, because then I would know what part is fiction and what is non­fic­tion. I could end wars.  I would slay the bible cat­e­go­ry on Jeop­ardy.  Besides, I would def­i­nite­ly include more penis and/or fart jokes in it. 

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Featured Work

Beach Dongs — A Toast to My Sister 

The fol­low­ing is a cre­ative non­fic­tion piece by Aimee DeGroat exclu­sive­ly for Stonecoast Review.

My sister, Ginny, called me to discuss the plans for her second wedding.  “I’m not doing the whole tra­di­tion­al cer­e­mo­ny this time,” she said.  “Instead, we want each of our guests to send us a short video toast.  We’re going to edit all the video clips togeth­er and play the montage for every­one instead of walking down an aisle. Recep­tion to follow. And please, Aim, record some­thing decent, this is serious.”

“Yeah, okay. So what’s the dress code for this shindig?  Can I wear, like, jeans?” I asked. 

“Um…no.  This will be fancy.  You should def­i­nite­ly get some­thing new. Why don’t you Face­time me when you shop and I’ll help you pick some­thing out.”  I felt a twinge of anxiety as I grabbed my purse and headed for the door.

“Not that one,” Ginny said later as I stood in Old Navy holding a dress out in front of my cell phone.  “Maybe some­thing a bit more…ah…upscale.”

I knew the main reason she wanted to see my outfit was because she wanted me to fit in and feel com­fort­able with the rest of the wedding party, a group of doctors, sci­en­tists, and high-ranking mil­i­tary offi­cers. Secret­ly, though, I think Ginny was worried I might wear some­thing inap­pro­pri­ate to the cer­e­mo­ny, like a dress pat­terned with mini-penises, and if I had found one in time, I would have.

 My sense of humor has always been crass and offen­sive, and the more I am expect­ed to contain myself and behave with decorum, the more I feel pres­sure build within myself until even­tu­al­ly I start doing some­thing obnox­ious, like singing song par­o­dies involv­ing penises, farts, or poop.  Worse, I never know when to stop.  Of course, when I end up upset­ting someone, I feel full of remorse.

Like when Ginny com­plet­ed her PHD and made me promise not to post any more penis pic­tures to her Face­book page. “I’m looking for post-doc­tor­al work, Aim, please. I know you think it’s funny, and I do too, but can you lay off a bit?” she pleaded. I tried hard to restrain myself, but when I found a picture of a cactus that looked like a giant erect phallus, I snick­ered glee­ful­ly, posted it on her Face­book page, and then tagged her just to make sure she saw it.  I imme­di­ate­ly felt guilty, but not enough to delete the post.

I made a short script for the toast that my boyfriend, Dane, and I would record for Ginny to play at her wedding.  “Are you sure about this?” he said, and I hes­i­tat­ed for a moment, but then nodded my head and hit the red button on my phone.  I replayed the short video several times, chuck­ling, before I hit send.  Imme­di­ate­ly, I started to wonder if I had made the right deci­sion.  I expect­ed to hear from Ginny demand­ing a new record­ing, one not so lowbrow, but all of our con­ver­sa­tions revolved around travel plans and what she was doing to prepare for our visit. 

When Dane and I arrived in Cal­i­for­nia for her wedding, we were swept up in a flurry of pre-wedding parties and wine tast­ings. Dane looked hand­some in slacks and a button-up shirt. I envied the sim­plic­i­ty of men’s dress-up clothes as I strug­gled with heels and eye­lin­er and held my one good skirt up with a safety pin through the zipper.  I was polite and demure at dinners, but I could feel the urge to mis­be­have filling me up like a kettle full of steam.  I needed some down time before I blew it and did some­thing to piss off my sister.

Dane sug­gest­ed a trip to the beach.  We climbed down cliffs in the morning mist and walked bare­foot along the Cal­i­for­nia coast­line. My brother, Dylan, and my sister, Sara, joined us.  Dylan, a lanky twenty-some­thing with a mohawk and Buddy Holly glasses, loped across the sand and made funny faces every time I took his picture. Sara, my youngest sibling, saun­tered serene­ly along the edge of the ocean holding her skirt up with one hand, her long brown hair tucked behind her ear. 

We came upon a fort that someone had con­struct­ed out of drift­wood.  It was about six feet tall, the size of a small bedroom, and we could not see inside. Dane strug­gled to fit his wide shoul­ders through the door.  Inside the struc­ture was a small seating area with a stump for a table. On the wall was a drawing of a gigan­tic dong.  Dane lured my brother in to take a look. “Hey Dylan, you won’t believe this, but there’s graf­fi­ti with your name on it in here,” he said, smirk­ing and elbow­ing me. 

It remind­ed me of the last time Ginny and I had been togeth­er. She had still been married to her first husband, Dustin, then and had brought him to her home­town in Maine for a visit. She insist­ed on a trip to the coast even though it was March.  The day turned out to be unusu­al­ly warm and all the snow was gone, so we stuffed our socks in our sneak­ers, and clam­bered over the slick, gray rocks in winter coats and bare feet. 

When Dustin, found the pink clutch in among the boul­ders beside the ocean, we were all sur­prised to find it con­tained a wide selec­tion of dildos. Dustin took each dong out of the bag one by one.  He ran his fingers over them, a look of stunned wonder on his face.  They were fleshy and pink, bulbous rubber, and hard plastic.  My favorite one was crafted out of one piece of solid clear glass.  Dustin held it above his head and the after­noon sun lit the tip up like a torch. A penis on fire.  Ginny was hor­ri­fied but I thought it was hysterical. 

“Dustin, put that down!  You don’t know where that’s been!”  she said as he held one up to his nose, as if to sniff it.

A few short years after that, Ginny left Dustin behind in Arizona and moved to Cal­i­for­nia.  It was strange to think how much had changed in both of our lives, but yet how much had stayed the same between us.

Dane and I left the beach with Dylan and Sara and headed to Ginny’s wedding event.  We pulled into a large Spanish style villa with a gated dri­ve­way, foun­tains, and man­i­cured gardens.  My sister looked beau­ti­ful. Her hair was long, blond, and expert­ly styled by the same team of people who applied her makeup. She greeted us at the door with her new husband. He wasn’t wearing a uniform but even if I did not know him I would be able to tell he was an officer in the mil­i­tary by the crisp press of his suit, the cut of his hair and the stiff, formal way he held his shoul­ders. A pho­tog­ra­ph­er circled around us snap­ping pictures.

As the guests milled around with drinks and waited to be seated, I could feel my anxiety grow.  Maybe the video clip I had emailed Ginny was too over the top.  Maybe no one would get my joke. Ginny had not men­tioned it, and didn’t seem upset with me, but maybe she had deleted it and wouldn’t include it at all.  It might be better if she didn’t, I thought.

“Let’s go for a walk,” Dane sug­gest­ed.  We left the grounds and climbed the small hill behind the villa.  From the top we could see over the walls that sur­round­ed the prop­er­ty.  All the guests formed little circles below.  They swirled around my sister and her new husband, offer­ing kisses and hugs.  Men clapped my new brother-in-law on the shoul­der and shook his hand. The crowd began grab­bing glasses of cham­pagne from wait­ress­es with trays.  They were heading to a seating area in front of a movie screen that had been set up on the patio. Behind us, the sun started to set and the sur­round­ing fields took on a pink and golden glow.  Dane climbed up on a fence to take a picture of some cows.  I took a picture of his rear end. 

“What if she gets mad,” I said.

“There’s nothing you can do about it now,” Dane said.  “It’s not as if you could stop her from playing it, besides, if she didn’t like it, she wouldn’t include it in the final version.”

“Well, she hasn’t said any­thing, so I’m worried she didn’t notice.”

“If she didn’t catch what you did, that’s her fault. She knows how you are,” he said.  “We should head back down before all the good seats are gone.”

The guests all smiled as Ginny and her new husband, Kris, appeared on the screen and thanked us for coming.  They were watch­ing togeth­er from the front row. My mom was beside me and had tears in her eyes as video clips from my sib­lings played wishing Ginny and Kris love and hap­pi­ness. Finally, I appeared on the screen, Dane by my side. 

I thought my face looked fat, but other than that, the quality was good.  In the clip I was stand­ing on my front porch at home and wearing a t‑shirt with PE on it in giant letters.  Dane had his arm around my shoul­der and was wearing a shirt that said IS.  After I con­grat­u­lat­ed my sister, I called to my son and asked him to come out on the porch and wish his Aunt Ginny good luck.  I made him stand between Dane and I. He grinned at the camera and waved, a giant N on his tee.  My sister turned to me from her seat in the front row and winked. 

After the movie, Dane and I and walked around the foun­tains in the garden.  I bent over one to make it look like I was pooping a stream of water and Dane took my picture. Later on I would post it to Ginny’s online wedding album, but for now, I posted it to her Face­book page and tagged her.  When I looked up from my phone, she was headed my way, Kris by her side.  She raised her glass of cham­pagne in the air and smiled.

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