Never try to do a November writing experiment if you are in academia. November? Forget it. Last weeks of class (next week is the very last), student crises, finals, faculty crises, grades, committee crises, and — right — there’s this thing about it being the darkest time of year. Writing? Just say uncle.
In Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, James Agee creates a complex portrait of a particular place and people: sharecroppers in 1930’s Alabama. Agee makes use of, to quote a somewhat reductive Amazon.com review, “poems; confessional reveries; disquisitions on the proper way to listen to Beethoven; snippets of dialogue, both real and imagined; a lengthy response to a survey from the Partisan Review; exhaustive catalogs of furniture, clothing, objects, and smells.” Indeed he does. This is a tough, fractured, sometimes compelling, sometimes anguished read, and sometimes quite frankly a goddawful self-absorbed mess, more about Agee than it is about the sharecroppers he claims to be documenting.
And then there are the writers, now, who suggest that they are doing “documentary work” — in writing — and create incomprehensible clotted prose and call it things like “documentary poetries” or “documentary innovations” or other hybrid nicknames.
I wonder. What are we doing here? If we call something documentary, and that something is writing, what is it we are trying to accomplish? replicate our experience? Or describe and explicate the new and unknown? When I write about the world I want to make it clear in someone else’s head. Yes, I may have had a surreal experience watching someone work, or listening to their story, or following someone around, or learning horrific facts. That’s my problem. My burden. What I need to do then is show my readers the work, the story, the path, the facts. I, the writer, need to step out of the way.
Right?
Or not right?
How much of any writer do we want present on a page? Frankly, I am wary of the absence of the “I” in any piece of writing. Someone was somewhere watching and listening. Why deny it? Tracy Kidder, long famous for absenting his own presence from his prose, finally emerges in Mountains Beyond Mountains. The first sentence of the book places the narrator, Kidder, squarely in the center of the story: “Six years after the fact, Dr. Paul Edward Farmer reminded me, ‘We met because of a beheading, of all things.’ ” There he is: Kidder, with Farmer. And off we go.
Yet, I am just as wary of the over-presence of the writer. Agee is too much with us in Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. As I read, I have the urge, again and again, to shove him aside so I can in fact see the people he writes about. James! It’s NOT about you! He, however, with his prose, seems to suggest, again and again, that it is. Who is right? I have no definitive answer for these questions. I am struggling with them myself. I say, publicly, that I am “interested in the intersection between memoir and documentary work.” I am. What you witness changes who you are. But the question still remains: how do you present it? My only answer so far is this: avoid the self-absorbed, the clever, the trendy. Walk away from literary pyrotechnics on the page. That’s my answer. These are not for me. I rather like plain prose. Not too plain, but straightforward enough. I suppose it’s the New England roots.
Yet. I still believe in the presence of “I.”
Horses and humans are the only mammals that sweat. In the winter, or now which feels rather like winter, horses develop thick coats of hair — fur, if you will — and so when I ride Buddy these days and he gets hot, as he does, all that hair makes him hotter still. He is drenched with sweat by the time we are done riding. So, frankly, am I. And then we both get chilled. Buddy gets “un-tacked” (I take off his bridle, saddle, etc.) and then gets to wear a “cooler” — a large blanket made of something synthetic and remarkable that wicks the moisture away from him. I wish I had a cooler. I walk around the freezing barn in my damp clothes, finishing my chores, cleaning my tack, and dreaming of the day I will have enough money to buy some swanky duds for myself that wick away my own moisture.
I was going to go to a show tonight, a free show, with unusual talent. But for many reasons, I’m not going. And I’m just as glad. It’s nice to sit in my little space, typing words on this little computer, thinking little thoughts. And, for now, it’s blissfully quiet. May it stay that way for days and weeks and months on end. Writing demands quiet. At least for me it does.
Tasted, recently: my own new recipe for avocado salad. One avocado, chopped. One tomato, chopped. A dollop of Caesar dressing. Stir. Let come to room temperature. Eat. Delicious.
Smelled, recently: the black and white coat of my thin dog Owen. I was reading a book last night with Owen tucked up next to me, sound asleep. He stirred as I turned a page. I stroked his neck, then buried my nose in his short fur. He smelled of grass, dirt, hay, a fall afternoon, taut unwashed musky skin of dog. There is no better smell in the world, save that of a horse.
Touched, recently: leather reins, with the live weight of a horse’s mouth vibrating through. The silken coat of cat, the murmur of a purr on my arm. Leathery skin of avocado. Dog poo, retrieved with a plastic bag, the poo dense and weighty, new and very warm (no, this is not gross, it is life itself). Jack Daniels on ice, a treat that is at once cold and then, burning (yes, it was Thanksgiving, and I did very much enjoy it). Winter riding boots: heavy, thick soled, profoundly warm. And now, sore feet in thick socks, a perfumed balm on my aching soles.
The heck with it. I’m officially skipping three days of blogging. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday — today. Tune in tomorrow.
And Happy THANKSGIVING!
While it may be negative thinking to focus on what is not, I am glad for these things:
I am glad I do not live in the country right now, this time of year, deer hunting season. LINK The countryside in Indiana is lousy with gunfire this time of year. And hooting rednecks. And pickup trucks shining their headlights into the woods spotlighting for deer. And men with guns walking the treelines. Their children tagging along behind. And deer fleeing the guns, the headlights, the men, deer everywhere. No thank you.
I am glad do not have the kind of job that requires the wearing of pantyhose and pointy shoes on a regular basis. Once upon a time I had a job with a strict dress code. And I owned a lot of pantyhose. Never again.
I am glad I do not smoke anymore. I’ve quit many times in my life, and know The Habit could resurface anytime. But right now? It’s gone. And I’m glad for that.
What are you glad for not having…?
I am listening to some lovely music, neo-newage-country perhaps, and there buried under dark lyrics is that step-step-close rhythm that is nothing but a waltz. The most lilting of dances, the waltz, romantic even. Ah. The person who taught me to waltz was one of my English professors at the small Quaker college I attended long ago. I shall not reveal who or where, but will say that this learned man who assiduously led us, line by line through Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Keats — he could dance the waltz with a lightness of foot I never would have imagined in such a short, portly, bearded and scholarly man.
And I, at my first winter dance at this little college, was taken in hand by this waltz tutor and shown how to waltz properly. Have you seen Dirty Dancing? Of course you have. Waltzing is not “dirty” dancing, but I must tell you waltzing is rather sensual in the hands and feet of someone who knows what on earth they are doing. My professor-tutor showed me how to waltz, and I took to it quickly. We whirled around the dance floor and it was like flying. I got it. The professor, and I know this now but did not then, enjoyed the dance. Nothing more. We whirled about the floor, all the other couples making room. What fun this was. I remember that even now. My poor date for the evening, a sweet Iowa boy, stood on the sidelines and watched. When the professor-dance-tutor handed me over to my date, I moved from the light hands of a master to the clumsy hands of a child. How interesting that was. Even now.
I’m still working on the book about the explosion in downtown Richmond, Indiana, and it’s been an interesting challenge. To say the least. People ask about the book regularly. I try not to answer in too much detail. People who do ask, and persist in asking, have, I find, assumed one of three things about the book:
1 - It’s history.
2 - It’s journalism.
3 - It’s factual and therefore dull.
Well, my friends, I am here to tell you that 1, 2, and 3, are all incorrect. Let me refute:
1 — No. First of all, I am not a historian. I don’t presume to have those research skills or interests. Second of all, I’m not particularly interested in the way history has been presented by historians. (See #3) Thirdly, I see time as a continuum, a slippery eel-like thing biting its own tale — ah: tail. The past? It’s here now. The present? It has always existed. And the future? Well, we step into it every moment, don’t we.
2 — No. Journalism has tenets and rules and constrictions that bind me up as a writer the way cheese binds up a dog. Sorry about that metaphor. I have done journalism, and done it fairly well, and found out a key element of my writing. I’m a good writer, and a a good interviewer, and get good stories. Yet I have never found it reasonable to say to someone: Give me your story, trust me, and I will print what I see fit. I don’t do that. I say: Give me your story, trust me, and I will SHOW you what I write before I print it. We’ll talk, you and I, and if there’s a problem we’ll work through it. That’s what I do, and let me tell you: it works. I understand why journalists do what they do. I get it. I also get that what I do works. Every damn time.
3 — Facts are dull? Oh, please. Turn off your TV and go for a walk. Pay attention to everything. Facts are not dull. Facts are the stuff of creation, of the universe, of the manifestation of god — if there is such a thing — on earth.
There is a fourth assumption: Jean, this is not your story.
4 — I know this. I was not there on April the 6th, 1968. I did not see what others saw. I did not lose someone I loved. I am not even from here, Richmond, Indiana. I will say this, however: living with this story now as intimately as I have for the last eighteen months I have come to see the world in a different way. Getting inside the story of the explosion? It has changed who I am. And so, yes, that is what the book is about. Not me, but that change. Transformation. I’ll write more about this in future posts, but mostly I want to say something that may sound like a cliche, but is not, not ever: life is short, everything is temporary, we have one opportunity to live an authentic life and that time is now. Now.
I missed this event, one I could have included in tasted/smelled/touched. However, after reading this post, am rather relieved I did. Read on, and grimace as I did: LINK
I am now three posts behind where I said I would be — a Friday, Saturday, and now a Sunday post. Check back tomorrow…I may catch up.
Surprise #1
I ordered my favorite drive-through food this morning: a bacon egg and cheese bagel, side of potato things, and a large coffee with four sugars and four creams. I figured I’d earned it, after having gotten up at some ungodly hour (4:45 to be exact, although my clock lied, nicely, and said 5:00), given a presentation, and politely fielded a lot of questions I’d answered many times before. I paid my money at the first drive through window, then motored up to the next to retrieve my food. I hauled the bag in the car window and it smelled perfectly hedonistic: salty, greasy, and even a little sweet, which I attributed to the serious quantities of sugar in the coffee.
Then, at my desk in my office, I unwrapped the lovely sandwich, and took a bite. Oh my. It was sweet. And mushy, not like a bagel at all. And it had a big M emblazoned on the top and bottom. I was eating a bacon egg and cheese pancake. With syrup. It was too late to turn back, to go back to the nice drive through girl and tell her she goofed, too late to re-order anything. So I ate my odd breakfast. And, yes, I rather liked it.
Surprise #2
Recently, I was browsing through some old journals, re-reading old entries. There, amongst a lot of other writing, was an entry about a workshop I had taken almost ten years ago. The woman running the workshop, unbeknownst to her, became a hero of sorts for me. She said wise, life-changing things in that workshop, things I took to heart and have used ever since. I have long moved on from the job that provide that workshop opportunity, and haven’t had the occasion to talk with this woman for nearly a decade.
But this morning, there she was. I finally got the chance to thank her in person for a long ago gift. I hope she knew I meant what I said this morning: thank you.
Surprise #3
Owen likes french fries. Which is fortunate, because so do I. Or, perhaps it is not fortunate. Because now I must share my french fries with my little dog.
Surprise #4
Meditation works. I have doubted this for years, but tried a new kind of meditation, one which suggests you focus your attention on an object, something you care about, and stay focused for two or three minutes. When an intrusive thought, or a worry, comes along, you refocus. “By the end of two or three minutes, you will probably feel more calm,” the instructions said. I did. Even though my object was a little Barbie toy, a unicorn with a blue horn, holding a pink pie, after a few minutes regarding it and thinking of nothing else I did, indeed, feel more calm. Who knew.
Surprise #5
Owen believes every drive-through window profers, and rightly so, dog treats. All the banks do. The drive through pharmacy does. So why, he would like to know, why, of all places, why doesn’t McDonald’s? When we got our french fries today he was very hurt — he told me so — that the girl who said he was cute didn’t provide a dog cookie in honor of his cuteness. It’s just not right, he said. It’s just not right.