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March 2010
On Writing
by
Renée Carrier
Dorothea Brande declares in her seminal book Becoming A Writer that an aspirant should dedicate a daily habit to writing. If after a certain amount of time the practice is neglected, then perhaps—no, she doesn’t even offer that consolation—but rather coldly insists the venture be abandoned altogether, a nod to William Blake’s “Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires.” Nevertheless, I continue to exact notions from my possibly too-crowded mind, “off-loading,” as it were, either by the physical comfort and pleasure of putting pen to paper, or by pecking at keys of letters, which then magically appear on a lighted screen before me. I can’t seem to help myself. And now the Mind-ers have recognized a new kind of disorder—in this age of post-modern dysfunction and oh-so-much-information-but-less wisdom—that identifies the compulsion to write as “hypergraphia,” as if I need yet one more obsession.
Writing is a relatively new development in human evolution, less than 10,000 years old I’m told, and yet some primitive members of our species don’t write at all. Some of us can and do not, except perfunctorily. Not expressing ourselves emotionally, scholastically, or artistically via the written word is merely personal preference, and cannot translate to illiteracy.
Enter the Muses: Motivating Factors! Compelling Agents! Lofty reasons we do write or do not, as in “I’m blocked.” In a film I recently viewed, a character entreats a friend to stop looking for obstacles, but to “find the magic” instead. Muses abound. They “happen.” They are all around and in me, yet I don’t see them. Well, occasionally. My senses communicate them to me—including my sense of imagination.
I write in a journal first thing in the morning, muse of coffee on my bedside table, three pages in a spiral-leafed notebook. I have for sixteen years now and consider it one of my “needful things.” This practice works to:
1. Dispel—as in “to banish” certain thoughts (which can turn into
feelings, which can manifest as behaviors if not checked), and/or,
2. To express a joy.
Between these two poles
runs the proverbial gamut of spirits, all crying out to be recognized
and acknowledged.
Dorothea Brande first recommended this helpful, therapeutic, and
now-popular practice of “Morning Pages,” (how Julia Cameron describes
them), as a means of sweeping out our conscious mind, in order to
prepare us for our regularly appointed writing time, and they can, and
do provide material and inspiration; they are “musings.” But the work
won’t be denied. It is a responsibility.
Words are sacred. Writing becomes the golden chariot that transports me to the sun or anywhere else I choose, or do I choose? Is the practice chosen for me? I love and thank Dorothea Brande for having been one of my early Muses, however fierce. It seems my purpose in writing must be examined, the intention clarified, but not by asking, “Why do I write?” but more important, “What kind of fruit will I bear by this labor, this vocation, perhaps this compulsion, certainly this love?”
Renée Carrier
January 2010
Of Memoirs and Time Capsules
by Gaydell Collier
In 1977, my husband, Roy, and I moved from the Laramie River valley to
Wyoming’s Black Hills. For six years before then, our family had been
acquiring and raising cattle, sheep, and horses on rented land. We also
had four kids, four dogs, a herd of cats, a fleet of vehicles (most of
them eligible for antique plates), furniture (including a grand piano),
and enough other stuff to fill an old-fashioned barn to the rafters. We
needed somewhere to put it all, and had finally found our own place.
Since at this point we had little money, we traded the grand for an
upright and moved everything ourselves, except for the cows and sheep.
For the sake of time, space, and my blood pressure, I won’t go any
further into that.
Suffice it to say, the move took a long time, required many trips, and asked the most in the way of cargo capacity from every vehicle we drove or towed. We didn’t leave anything behind. The 1947 two-ton Chevy truck had been loaded with Roy’s huge and solid workbench, twenty years’ worth of National Geographics, Saturday Evening Posts, various agricultural magazines, and enough other stuff to mound out of the bed like Mt. St. Helens, with just as much potential for erupting. We splurged on a huge, good-quality tarp to hold it all in.
Roy drove the ’47 into our new ranch and parked. Since nothing on the truck was needed for immediate survival, we didn’t unload it right away. By the time the next summer rolled around, other things were too pressing to worry about whatever lay under the tarp. Another summer. And another. Another decade.
Sporadic comments: “Shouldn’t we unload the ’47?”
“Not now. No time.”
Occasional peeks: undo one bungee cord and lift a corner of the tarp. Out zoom a squadron of disturbed wasps. Replace tarp and bungee cord. Maybe try again next winter. Years pass. 2001: all kids long since grown up and gone. 2006: Roy passes away. 2009: some kids and grandkids visit.
“How about we unpack the time capsule?”
“Good idea. Why not?”
We all assemble for the ceremony. We plan to begin at the back and gradually roll the tarp forward, exploring a little at a time, unpacking as we go. Two of us stand armed with wasp-killer spray. No need—apparently the wasps and their grandchildren had all passed away, too.
We expect a moldy, sodden super-lump of fused and unidentifiable gunk. We make arrangements for extra dumpster collections. Aside from the workbench and magazines, I can’t remember what’s in there. The kids certainly didn’t remember, and the grandkids had never seen or heard of any of it. We begin.
First surprise: the quality tarp paid off. Except for a few pressure points that did wear and leak, the tarp had done its job. Much—though certainly not all—of the contents emerged unscathed by rain, mold, insects, or time.
And such contents! Favorite children’s books I thought lost and gone forever turned up unharmed by their thirty-two-year rest. Kitchen tools, pieces of furniture—so that’s where they’d been! Items I’d totally forgotten until seeing them again—my imported wooden skis from college days, neatly boxed for fifty years. Roy’s collection of new car parts for a 1939 LaSalle and a 1929 Model A Ford (including pristine hubcaps). Buckets of farrier tools, dresser drawers full of kids’ clothes, toys, stuffed animals. Items I could swear I’d never seen before in my life, like the buggy lamps (horse-drawn, not insects), probably one of Roy’s auction purchases.
Was it irony or serendipity that this same summer I was working on writing a memoir: a recounting of the years we lived in a cabin by the Laramie River before we packed up the ’47 and moved. The parallel was almost uncanny. Writing memoir is just like that—like opening a time capsule. It involves gradually rolling back the tarp of time, unfolding and revealing the past.
As I was writing, some mind-pictures I remembered well, like the reconstructed pitcher pump at the sink oozing slime instead of gushing out water. Others were spurred by now seeing a child’s stuffed animal or reading a letter that had been miraculously preserved. Some mind-pictures, dimly recalled, needed no outside prompt. They came into sudden focus simply by association, by the concentration of recalling an era. The act of writing itself extracted and dusted off associated events from the jumble of hodge-podge memories.
And once in a while—like discovering the buggy lamps—a stray image, a thought never entertained in over thirty years, sparked into view. Was this truly my own sublimated memory, or was it a quirk of invention? Lacking either confirmation or contradiction from my deceased husband or someone who knew us back then, I choose the former. Yes, it really happened, by jingoes, and is a worthy addition to my tale.
And so I recommend the adventure of writing memoir, of opening your own time capsule. Who knows what you might uncover?
Gaydell Collier