Book News: Bellflower

 

 

“There are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before.”  --Willa Cather

 

I was thinking about this quote a few years ago, when a character occurred to me: a middle-aged man, attending the 50th birthday party of the husband of one of his wife's friends, when he meets a woman who will unexpectedly alter the course of his life. A classic Boy Meets Girl scenario, only complicated by modern times and circumstance. I started writing about him, just for fun. When scenes occurred to me, I wrote them too. Other people in his orbit soon appeared, people whose classic human stories may have turned out just a little differently than they had imagined. Eventually, this project, started just for fun, began to turn into something, something about three families living in southern California and weathering what life had to throw at them, those times when events go off script.

 

If there’s such a thing as a novel-in-stories, then maybe this could be called a novel-in-moments. And this week, I signed with an exceptional indie publisher to bring the finished product, BELLFLOWER, to print. More about them, and the novel, in the coming months (not too much, I promise!), and more about why this might be a book unlike others you’ve read, and about what influenced it and how it came about. Life throws many curve balls, and it’s a good time for me to delve back into this project so close to my heart.

 

We writers know how amazing it feels to find someone who believes in you and your work, and I’m thrilled to have this unique novel find a path to readers. Details soon.

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Writing Affirmations

Tell yourself you’re doing it for humanity. Teeming, varied, rushing life. What binds us here in this place? What makes us pass each other in the street and pause, looking into another’s face to notice: I see you. I understand. Something like that happened to me. I felt like that once.

 

We don’t always get it right. Sometimes the right word, the right phrase, slips through our grasp, bobbing and submerging into the green stew. We try. We describe its slippery surface, the feel of it. We gaze into the murky depths, looking for clues, for context.

 

Testimony: evidence or proof provided by the existence or appearance of something.

 

It’s important, what you do. Never lose sight of that. That a-ha moment, empathy, recognition—these are the best parts of humanity. It’s wonderful to be loved but oh, to be understood.

 

Keep at it, scribes. What you do is important. Not everyone has the patience to stop and look, to try to articulate what it means to be here, right now. Pen to paper, fingers on keyboard, keep gazing towards the horizon, continue excavating memory, and feeling, and hope. Spill it out, profess, recite. What you do is important and so necessary.  

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On Currents and Writing and Focus

 

For the past few days, I’ve had an image in my head of a flowing creek, with a large but smooth rock sitting right smack dab in the middle. Currents flow around it, the water streamlined and purposed; this implacable boulder gives the appearance of being, by all rights, an integral part of the flow rather than an obstacle, as one would tend to think of a huge rock in the center of a moving path.

I didn’t come up with this image in a vacuum. Recently, the writer Lauren Groff tweeted about celebrating her 20^th anniversary of “taking writing seriously.” She clarified: “By taking writing seriously, I mean that a thing happened that made me decide to make writing the immovable boulder at the center of my life. Everything else—family, friends, other work—has to find a way to flow around writing.”

Have I done that, I wondered, either consciously or subconsciously? In the creek of my life, what does writing look like and has that been working for me? This image stayed with me, her words lingering until I was forced to come up some vision of my own stream, my own boulder. And what I think is that for me, for now, writing is more like a collection of smaller rocks, haphazardly arranged. The water still flows, around and over these less-imposing obstacles, but it’s harder for a person to navigate, should she choose to swim or walk downstream. If she had a small boat—a canoe maybe—it would be very challenging to steer a clear path.

If your stream looks like mine, others can visit and they will experience it much like you do. They, too, will have a hard time navigating around those smaller, randomly-placed stones. But if there's just the one, large boulder, if you have made writing a central, essential part of your stream—well, that’s pretty clear, isn’t it? They can see what to do, how to proceed.

One day, I’ll have to put on waders and some sort of sturdy backpack. I’ll have to gather those smaller rocks and stack them in the very center. Over time, with any luck, this mound of craggy stones will become smooth and unified by the currents. And if I’m very, very fortunate, the new, imposing structure will be big enough to climb and rest on, high enough to see around the next bend or further towards the horizon, but still low enough to dip my toes in, allowing for an easy transition back into the water.

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My Grandmother's European Tour

 

During World War II, my grandmother, Mary Bailey (later, Bowen), was in Texas serving in the Army as a nurse. My mother was five years old at the time, and left back in West Virginia in the care of her grandmother, Addie Bailey. My grandma was away from sometime in 1943 until September 1945; my mother remembers this specific return date, and remembers the extended family members living at her grandmother’s during this time. Only one man was around, one of her uncles who had a deferment; the rest had been drafted. This story of my grandma’s service was something I heard as a child and in the way of family stories, didn’t appreciate more fully until I grew up and had kids of my own, and no longer had her around to ask about these many months away from home. I do know and remember that she was very proud of her career, which continued in private practices after she returned, and of her service in the Army. As well she should have been.

Recently I was going through photographs and mementos with my mother, things both from her boxes and those moved over from my grandparents’ home. I’ve always had an interest in family photos and thought I had seen all of them, but some of these items I hadn’t. My grandparents have been gone for over a decade, but my uncle had been living in their place until his passing, a couple of years ago. So.

 

We came across some papers regarding a trip my grandmother took in 1962. Apparently, the professional organization of nurses to which she belonged planned a European tour. She traveled with them for a month, making stops throughout Italy, France, Germany, etc. My mother was already married and out of the house but her brothers—my two uncles who were born after the war—were fifteen and sixteen. We found the many letters my grandma wrote home, detailing her impressions (loved Capri, underwhelmed by Florence, etc.). In some of them, she mentioned her disappointment about not having a letter waiting for her at one of the hotels on the itinerary she’d left my grandfather and the boys. Apparently, they’d been given the directive to send these letters, so they’d be waiting at her stops. This is so like my grandma, I can’t even tell you. Overseeing everyone, being very clear about what is expected of you, making you feel your importance in her life while also being good to herself. There were a few letters from the eldest of her sons: telling her about a new girlfriend, hinting to the fact that he’d been promised a car when she returns.

I loved reading my grandma’s impressions along her journey and seeing her familiar, steady handwriting. I love that she made a few notes about souvenirs she wanted to purchase along the way. And I love, most of all, that she had the gumption to make the trip in the first place. Like my grandma, I’ve always loved travel and also like her, I’ve been known to be good to myself from time to time. My kids are about the age my uncles were when she went on this trip and I can’t even imagine doing something like that at this stage. In some ways, it was easier to go away when they were a bit younger. I don’t know if that’s because it feels like there are so many more things to keep a handle on these days, or because their time as children is so dangerously nearing its end. At any rate, I know this opportunity must have been difficult for her in many ways, but also very rewarding. Like her time in the Army. Like anything worth doing in this life, which has a way of presenting opportunities and challenges arm in arm.

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Poem for the Weekend: Marianne Moore

 

Before Marianne Moore became a poet, she was a teacher, then an assistant at the New York Public Library, where she began to meet other Imagist poets. Imagism was a movement in early 20th-century poetry that favored precision of imagery and clear, sharp language. Moore drew much inspiration from the natural world, especially animals. A new collected edition of her poetry was released this year.

 

Talisman

 

by Marianne Moore (1887-1972)

 

Under a splintered mast,
torn from ship and cast
              near her hull,
a stumbling shepherd found
embedded in the ground,
              a sea-gull
of lapis lazuli,
a scarab of the sea,
            with wings spread—
curling its coral feet,
parting its beak to greet
            men long dead.

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