q&a: patricia fuentes burns

an interview with the author of "how long before i see you"

by Rana Attia

In "How Long Before I See You," Patricia Fuentes Burns’ story for the Grace in Darkness collection, a recently divorced woman takes her children to the beach. While her kids play with another family’s kids she starts talking to their parents. Through the conversation she has with the father, and through future encounters, the protagonist begins to understand that everything in her life, a life that is turning out differently than she hoped, is not so black and white and that in the grey area there is space for hope. Fuentes Burns says much of her writing is about hope, connection, and acceptance.

Annie Dillard wrote, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” Fuentes Burns considers Dillard’s words to be her life motto and as the philosophy behind her writing, which remains rooted in small moments of grace even as her characters face drama and tragedy. The quote highlights that life is not about the big moments, but about the small daily things that make us who we are and make our existence meaningful. It is about finding grace through our darkest periods and living moment to moment rather than focusing on big events to make life richer. This idea of overcoming hardship through small moments of light and grace is seen in the events depicted in "How Long Before I See You."

Fuentes Burns has been published in several publications. Her short story, "Venom," was published in the Quarter After Eight, "What Girls Do" was published in Quartery West, and "Rope Flowers" in Georgia State Review.

How would you define grace in darkness?
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The phrase suggests the idea that in your darkest moments and in the most difficult seasons of life is when you experience the most grace. You receive help from places you never expected. You have moments of clarity you couldn’t imagine before. In darkness is when you are most open to experiencing grace because you need it so much. When everything is great, you don’t need that grace and you may not appreciate it when it is right before you.

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Where do you think ‘How Long Before I See You’ falls on the grace in darkness spectrum?
I think there is a sadness and a loneliness in the story. There is definite dimness in both the female protagonist’s life and the man’s life. For both of them, their encounters are moments of grace. They are able of find a little bit of comfort in each other. They are in difficult moments in their lives, like so many of us experience, and through connection they find hope.

What attracted you to this somber, yet optimistic story?

Many of my stories touch on this theme of finding joy even in difficult moments. I am really attracted to exploring the fact that we live within that space of dark and light. That life is not all happiness, it is not all sadness. Both light and dark are part of your life all the time. These days there is such an emphasis on happiness and being happy all the time. That is just not realistic and puts us in a position to reject half of our experience as humans. I try to show life as both the bright stuff and the sad stuff. That combination is the very essence of life.

What especially inspired "How Long Before I See You"?

Not many of my stories are literally based on anything that truly happened, but there is often a little kernel of reality. A little thing happens and it just pops in my mind and brings a story to me. I was at the beach and my children started playing with some children from another family. Like in the story, I started talking to the parents. The husband was very chatty and very friendly. I learned that his wife had grown up in that beach town and that they owned and rented out several houses. We talked for quite a while and he shared a lot about their lives. It got me thinking how on vacation you make these bonds with people you never see again. But then I thought, what if you did see them again?

What was your childhood like, did you go to the beach a lot?

I did! I’m originally from Spain and spent summers in a little beach town there. Even now, I go back to the same town with my own kids nearly every summer. If I could live anywhere, it would be the beach. I would drive six hours just to spend a day at the beach! I find that when writing short pieces, a beach setting is a little bit of a short cut because most people have the same vivid associations with the beach so you can very quickly create an atmosphere without spending time explaining and describing the surroundings.

Why do you think "How Long Before I See You" is chosen as the last piece for the Grace in Darkness anthology?

I can see how having it as the capstone to the collection might bring in relief and optimism to the reader, and lift the tone of the whole anthology. The message in the story is that even in our darkest moments, even after the worst thing happens, we can move on. We can still be happy. Relationships can still happen. Connections are possible that will bring us grace in darkness.

Do the writers that inspire you have that optimistic tone?

Yes. I do tend to like pretty dark fiction and poetry but it does always have an element of hope, because without it a story can be like a friend who complains all the time. If you can’t have that hopeful insight, both the story and the friend get depressing and boring.

How is "How Long Before I See You" different from your other work?
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Actually, it isn’t! I think it is more similar to my other work than not in the sense that I tend to explore the lives of lonely characters, people who feel different. And then something happens that allows them to find hope, often through a connection with another person. My characters also somehow end up at the beach a lot!