“there isn't enough of anything
as long as we live. But at intervals
a sweetness appears and, given a chance
prevails.”
(~ Raymond Carver, “Utramarine: Poems)
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The other day someone asked me if I’d always written. Essays. Stories. Memories.
The short answer is “no”.
For decades I wrote on spec —-what was asked of me. I won an essay competition in my final year in high school. I wrote lesson plans and narrative summary text for topics in American history, civics, U.S government, “world” history and geography textbooks. Interviews and features for magazines and an occasional book review. I didn’t write about my memories or feelings. I did in my head but never in print to show others —-till recently.
My father bought cars (mainly second-hand) like shirts. Every few years. So a scene like this was common on a weekend but the interior monologue was unshared.
“I am looking at the contoured Austin Princess. A magnificent metal chariot in our driveway. My mother, sister and I are admiring this glamorous beast while my father surveys us all. He decided to get a new car; traded in his old one and drove the new one home just as we awoke on a Saturday morning.
The air is a bit chilly, clear though, long before the polluted air of Calcutta. My sister seems sleepy but looking intently at the polished leather seats and the dashboard that is made of gleaming artificial wood and with more instruments, it seems, than an airplane. I’d glimpsed a cockpit as I ducked into a two-engine propeller plane cabin on our trip north the summer before.
What was I doing here? Admiring, silently. Obediently. Respectfully. As always, the model little boy.
Did I think, hell, do this for another few minutes and then dart back into the house, dive under the cement and brick stairwell with my book and lands faraway?”
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I do write now. And I wait for readers to comment. Here’s one that I’m reprinting by permission.
If you have read the collection, Revisiting the Mines: Essays and Excavations, and have a reaction —-admiring or loathsome or anywhere in between—-would you let me know? For writers like myself, self-publishing, getting “reviewed” is a spit in the ocean. So this is a genuine request.
“I just finished reading your book. It's really wonderful. I read it in just two sittings as I found it so compelling. Your writing is beautiful. And your particular life and family history are very, very interesting.
Additionally, I'm struck by the complexity of this book's approach. You present many disparate memories and reflections that somehow, over the course of the book, form a profoundly true representation of the nature of memory and self-narrative. The book prompted me to think about my own life and the fact that memories are like a collage or patchwork of vignettes or something similar, rather than any kind of smooth and continuous narrative.
I really admire and appreciate the ambitiousness of what is at the same time a humbly honest work. BRAVO!”
(~ Elizabeth Merrick on Revisiting the Mines)
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