Where In the World Do You Come to the Page?

I love my back porch on summer mornings.  A soft breeze whispers through the evergreens, a chorus of birds serenade me with early morning wake up songs, no one else in the house is stirring  (not even Magic or Molly), and I can savor the solitude.  Still in pajamas and slippers, my first cup of coffee close at hand, I tuck my laptop under my arm, pile my books and notebook on a wicker side table, and settle into the chair.  It's a perfect place to write. Of course, I write in other places in the house.  I'm fortunate to have a "room of my own," with a writer's desk and large overstuffed chair (with extra wide arms perfect for propping up a laptop).  Most of the time, that's where my writing happens, seated at the desk or curled up in my chair.  There are bookstacks everywhere in that room, and though I keep cleaning them up, more seem to appear in their place.  Whether I'm writing blog posts, or book reviews, or even working on a short story, I seem to need bookstacks around. <smiles>

I'm nosy about writer's desks, aren't you?  There seems to be something magical about the places people write.   I readily admit to chills running down my spine when I stood in Virginia Woolf's study at Rodmell, and Charlotte Bronte's parlor in the parsonage at Haworth.   Every year, I purchase a copy of The Writer's Desk calendar - photographer Jill Krementz has made a study of writers and their desks, and has published a lovely coffee table sized book as well as these annual calendars. (See, I'm not the only nosy one!)  And it isn't just writer's desks that intrique me - it's all the "writuals" that are associated with the writing process. 

Stephen King wrote Carrie and Salem's Lot "in the laundry room of a double wide trailer, pounding away on my wife's portable Olivetti typewriter and balancing a child's desk on my thighs."  He advises writers to "have a space of their own," a place with a door you are "willing to shut, telling the world and yourself you mean business."  (On Writing)  Conversely, Natalie Goldberg advises leaving home occasionally, going to a cafe or public place to write.  "It's good to change the scenery from time to time," she says, "because at home there is the telephone, the laundry, the refrigerator, the dishes to be washed, a letter carrier to be greeted. If you made the effort to get to a cafe, you can't leave as easily and go do something else, the way you can in your own home."  (Writing Down the Bones)

Awareness of place is important, not just because of nosy friends like me, but to set the stage for all the writing that you do.  Before you can convincingly relate a feeling of place to your reader, you must first feel it for youself.  If you're connected to the place you write in, Julia Cameron tells us, the "accumulation of details, the willingness to be specific and precise, the willingness to 'place' a piece of writing accurately in context - all these things make for writing the reader can connect to."  (The Right to Write) 

How about you?  Last week we talked about why  we come to the page, now I want to know where  you come to the page.  What's magical about your writing spot (or spots!)  Free write about the places you put pen to paper.  Post pictures if you can  - that would be even more fun!  (I can't because the battery in my camera is dead!)

Leave a comment  with the url  linking to your blog post, and we'll all come and spy on each other. <more smiles>

By the Handful

A handful of blueberries, nestled in my open palm, small nuggets of sweetness washed and ready to sprinkle on a bowl of vanilla yogurt.  They were on sale today, and so I indulged in this rare treat, usually a dearer price than I care to pay.  As I shook them from their plastic container into my hand, I recalled another time when I held a palm full of blueberries.  These had been freshly picked, though, and I had eaten half again as many as I collected, unable to resist the allure of plucking them straight from the bush and popping them into my mouth.  It was 15 years ago this summer, I realized, shocked once again by the swift passage of time.  And I was with my mother in law at her home on the lake.

It was our first trip to the lake after my father in law's death.  His illness had prevented any of us from traveling north that summer, or from properly opening the house.  Imagine our distress when we opened the front door and saw the roof over the family room had leaked, stagnant smelly water had soaked the carpet and furniture.  My mother in law burst into tears, unable to withstand this latest blow. 

"What in the world will I do now?" she cried, and I knew she wasn't speaking just about the damage to her home.

Knowing the trip would now take longer than the weekend we had planned, I agreed to stay on and help her while Jim and Brian returned home.  So for the first time in the 20 years we had known each other, the two of us were living together, without the buffer of our respective mates.

My mother in law was never an easy person to be with.  In the best of times, she was demanding, negative, and emotionally distant.  (My husband would add illogical and self-centered to that list as well.)  When Jim and I first met, she had quite an iron grip on his life, but he quickly began prying her fingers away, and the results weren't always pretty.    I knew she considered me the interloper, corrupting her precious only son and luring him away from his family.

But we got along all right, and, especially after Brian was born, I think she cared about me in her strange, remote sort of way.  We had grown closer during my father in law's last illness, as I had spent a good deal of time with them, talking to doctor's, arranging for care givers, driving her places she needed to go.

So those few days alone in the "place up north" weren't a terrible burden.   We fell into a routine, as people will.  She always got up early, for she was a woman who was perpetually busy, and one morning after Jim left, I looked out my window and glimpsed her behind the row of blueberry bushes growing along the border between the house and garden.  Quickly plucking fruit from the branches, she had nearly filled the large plastic bowl tucked under her left arm.  I slipped into my clothes and shoes, and stepped out the back door. 

"Are they sweet yet?" I asked.

She looked up, startled, I think, to see me up and dressed so early.  "Well," she admited, "I don't know.  I haven't tried one."

"For goodness sake," I chided her good naturedly, making my way through the thick, wet grass, "why don't you eat some?  It looks like there's plenty."  I pinched a fat navy blue berry from its stem and placed it in my mouth, letting my teeth sink into the musky flesh that somehow tastes just like the color blue should taste. 

"Mmmm," I said, quickly grabbing a few more and greedily gobbling them up.  "So good!"

Almost furtively, she placed a berry in her mouth, as if she weren't allowed to enjoy them, only pick and collect them for some future use.  She widened her eyes in surprise, and then delight, almost as a child would in discovering a surprise gift of candy.

"Oh, these are good!" she exclaimed.  "I don't think I've ever eaten them right off the bush like this." 

Such a small pleasure, denied to herself for whatever strange, perverse reason.  So we continued for a while, happily picking, eating, and occasionally tossing a few more berries into the bowl.  It became a ritual of our mornings, those moments in the berry patch, and we'd eat our fill, and then pick more to give to the neighbors.

During those few days that we spent together, cleaning things, buying new furniture and carpet, going through some of my father in law's things, the balance of power started to shift.  "Now what do you think?" she began to ask me, about everything from buying a sofa to ordering dinner at Ron's Restaurant.  And she'd take my advice, sometimes even acknowledging "what a good idea" it had been.

Today, as I taste my spoonful of store bought (alas!) blueberries, I think of her as she was earlier this afternoon when I visited her at Chestnut Village, the dementia care center where she lives.  Hunched on the sofa, legs crossed, her chin propped on prayerfully folded hands, she sits and dozes for hours.  Mary Alice, the lovely lady who leads activities, smiled at me, then came over and touched her lightly on the shoulder.

"Chris," she said, "we're taking some folks outside to play horseshoes.  Wouldn't you like to come?"

She looked over at me, eyebrows raised.  "What do you think?" she asked.

"I think you should go play," I said.  "It sounds like fun."

"Well, okay then!" she agreed readily, taking Mary Alice's hand to help her stand up.  I watched her totter unsteadily out of the room, my presence - my very existence, even - already forgotten. 

I always take a small gift when I visit, usually something sweet, like those tins of sugar cookies, or a package of Hershey Kisses. But next time,  I believe I'll take something different - perhaps a handful of blueberries would be nice.

Postscript

Thank you to everyone who shared their thoughts about what brings them to the page.  I was enlightened and insprired by each one of you.  (A reminder that Write on Wednesday lasts all week, so if you decide to respond to the prompt anytime during then week, then feel free to do so.)

As a postscript to this week's WOW (Susan pointed out the aptness of the acronym),  here's a quote from I found this morning on Writing Time - it's from a man named Frank Smith.   I especially like the last two lines...

Writing is for stories to be read, books to be published, poems to be recited, plays to be acted, songs to be sung, newspapers to be shared, letters to be mailed, jokes to be told, notes to be passed, recipes to be cooked, messages to be exchanged, memos to be circulated, announcements to be posted, bills to be collected, posters to be displayed and diaries to be concealed.

Writing is for ideas, action, reflection, and experience. It is not for having your ignorance exposed, your sensitivity destroyed, or your ability assessed.

Happy Writing!

Write on Wednesday~ Postscript

Thank you to everyone who shared their thoughts about "why in the world they come to the page."  I was enlightened and insprired by each one of you.  (A reminder that Write on Wednesday lasts all week, so if you decide to respond to the prompt with a post on your blog, or a comment here at the Byline, then feel free to do so.)

As a postscript to this week's WOW (Susan pointed out the aptness of the acronym),  here's a quote from I found this morning on Writing Time - it's from a man named Frank Smith.   I especially like the last two lines...

Writing is for stories to be read, books to be published, poems to be recited, plays to be acted, songs to be sung, newspapers to be shared, letters to be mailed, jokes to be told, notes to be passed, recipes to be cooked, messages to be exchanged, memos to be circulated, announcements to be posted, bills to be collected, posters to be displayed and diaries to be concealed.

Writing is for ideas, action, reflection, and experience. It is not for having your ignorance exposed, your sensitivity destroyed, or your ability assessed.

Happy Writing!

Write on Wednesday-Why In the World Do You Come to the Page?

Frustration has been the name of the game this week.   Our computers at work are wonky, we have a new staff member in the office meaning there's all kinds of unusual verbal and social interaction, and then one of our senior staff members decided it would be fun for all of us to have instant messenger so we could IM each other within our huge (7 peeople on a good day) office.  I'm ashamed to say I spent at an hour creating my avatar...you see, I was trying to find this one icon of a fluffy white dog (see what I mean about wasting time?)

So I got home about 6:00, after fighting my way through rush hour traffic, and what's the first thing I feel compelled to do?

Write.

Wouldn't you think that after a frustrating day, a day when every accomplishment, every task was completed with much virtual hair pulling and screaming, wouldn't you think that after a day like that I'd crave nothing more than a big glass of wine, a huge box of chocolates, and my easy chair?

Why in the world would I come to the page after a day like that?

"We should write because writing is a powerful form of prayer and meditation, connecting us both to our own insight and to a higher and deeper level of inner guidance," says Julia Cameron, in The Right to Write.  "Writing is good for the soul."

While I don't necessarily think of writing as cathartic, I do believe it helps me make sense of my world and myself.  There are times when a striking truth about my life suddenly appears before me on the screen, complete and utterly honest, coming straight from my spirit through my fingers and onto the page.  For a writer, there is a great connection between the heart, the mind, and the pen.  The act of setting words on the page seems to open a door directly into my writer's soul, letting me in on the secrets that are stored there.

Perhaps that why writing is such a restorative act.  "Writing has so much to give, so much to teach, so many surprises," Anne Lamott writes in Bird by Bird.  "The actual act of writing turns out to be the best part.  It's like discovering that while you thought you needed the tea ceremony for the caffeine, what you really needed was the tea ceremony.  The act of writing turns out to be its own reward."

Indeed, there was a sense of relief, of reassurance, to come home, kick off my shoes, and curl up in my easy chair with my virtual pen and paper - my little laptop perched precariously on the chair's overstuffed arm.  I admit, there was wine involved too, but the comfort and relaxation which flooded my body had more to do with the words flowing from my fingertips than from the alcohol flowing past my lips. 

Writing replenishes my spirit, it rejuvenates my mind, it relaxes my emotions.

And that's why I come to the page.

How about you?  What brings you to the page, and why?

Write on Wednesday  is back!  This column once appeared regularly here at the Byline as a weekly look at the craft of writing in general and my own in particular.  Write on Wednesday  will appear each week throughout the summer, and this time you're invited to participate by creating your own blog post using the topic of the week's post as your prompt.  

You know the drill...leave a comment here with a link to your post.  I can't wait to see what you come up with.