Thank you for sharing these remembrances, George. To my bones, I understand how a place can be a pal. Your encomium to your home, well loved, lived, and worked in, has been beautiful and moving. I hope that it’s been useful to you to share this process and some of the gold you’ve mined with your finds.
The involuntary look inside your head is amazing. I’m so glad you saved it. What strikes me most is how all those characters -- varied as they are -- seem to posses what is a hallmark of not only your work but your way of being, that is, characterized by a sense of well -meaning and kindness. Even when your characters are doing things that will not serve well, there is always the sense of their fundamental striving to be the best they can be and the interconnectedness among people despite their differences. I’m not sure if what I’m saying makes sense but to my sensibility, it’s all there, in the look inside the makings of your mind.
Time and memory, hoo boy, indeed.
For reasons I can’t exactly explain, the phrase that comes to mind is “life and the memory of it,” from Elizabeth Bishop’s poem called “Poem,” which is about a pretty worthless painting that’s been handed down (as Bishop herself was) from family member to family member. In the poem, the painting (done by an Uncle) is given to her. At first Bishop can’t warm to it; a painter herself, she can appreciate the technical details, but it’s not until she “recognizes the place,” that the poem changes and we feel her nearness to it and to the uncle who painted it. I hope the poem, below, resonates for you and others herein.
Warmly, and with gratitude,
Robin
POEM
About the size of an old-style dollar bill,
American or Canadian,
mostly the same whites, gray greens, and steel grays
-this little painting (a sketch for a larger one?)
has never earned any money in its life.
Useless and free., it has spent seventy years
as a minor family relic handed along collaterally to owners
who looked at it sometimes, or didn't bother to.
It must be Nova Scotia; only there
does one see abled wooden houses
painted that awful shade of brown.
The other houses, the bits that show, are white.
Elm trees., low hills, a thin church steeple
-that gray-blue wisp-or is it? In the foreground
a water meadow with some tiny cows,
two brushstrokes each, but confidently cows;
two minuscule white geese in the blue water,
back-to-back,, feeding, and a slanting stick.
Up closer, a wild iris, white and yellow,
fresh-squiggled from the tube.
The air is fresh and cold; cold early spring
clear as gray glass; a half inch of blue sky
below the steel-gray storm clouds.
(They were the artist's specialty.)
A specklike bird is flying to the left.
Or is it a flyspeck looking like a bird?
Heavens, I recognize the place, I know it!
It's behind-I can almost remember the farmer's name.
His barn backed on that meadow. There it is,
titanium white, one dab. The hint of steeple,
filaments of brush-hairs, barely there,
must be the Presbyterian church.
Would that be Miss Gillespie's house?
Those particular geese and cows
are naturally before my time.
A sketch done in an hour, "in one breath,"
once taken from a trunk and handed over.
Would you like this? I'll Probably never
have room to hang these things again.
Your Uncle George, no, mine, my Uncle George,
he'd be your great-uncle, left them all with Mother
when he went back to England.
You know, he was quite famous, an R.A....
I never knew him. We both knew this place,
apparently, this literal small backwater,
looked at it long enough to memorize it,
our years apart. How strange. And it's still loved,
Look, I went to Seminary, so I’ve got a lot of absorbed biblical knowledge (and occasionally some understanding). Because of that, it’s hard not to think of how Jesus taught his disciples (which was just to invite them into his life, to see how he lived) when I think of this story club.
It’s not often we are taught this way these days (where we see fewer apprenticeships), hence the Jesus example. But I think this generosity in sharing habits, thought processes, evolution of style and practice - just being an open book is more helpful than a book just giving advice. Although, I have benefitted from those as well and I will still recommend them to others - not trying to disparage books I’ve very much loved.
But there is something about seeing behind the curtain that really clicks that advice into place. I feel very lucky to be a part of this.
Really not trying to push us into that cult that people joke we are in by comparing George to Jesus LOL. It’s just the main example I could think of that showed teaching as bringing people into your lived life.
Thank you, George! Your "notes to self" are well worth the price of admission! Right now I'm pawing through Word folders and docs, hard copies of a bunch of drafts, lots of notes, and it seems like madness sometimes. I've been writing for a long time, and still it is so good to see that other writers and other stories go through much the same mayhem! Love, love, love to you!
Seeing your notes, George, leaves me feeling so incredibly happy. I do similar kinds of notes to myself--I can't really think otherwise, or see what I've written, or figure out where I've made a wrong turn or even a correct one. (Of course, my eventual outcome is quite different from yours as most of my stories are disasters....but you get my point.) You write something, you get it down, and then you look at it, you ponder it, you make notes, you make a kinda sort of outline, you dig deeper, you look for connections, you look to see what it is you are saying. God, George, seeing you DO this is just wonderful. "She thinks happy loving thoughts." "Maybe the geodes are out there" "From SOMETHING to..." THANK YOU for sharing this! So generous of you!!
Regarding your move: I'm really glad you've got Paula with you. May the two of you enjoy many loving years together in your new home.
Thank you for sharing this! I cannot stress enough how helpful it is to see these notes and scribbles and doodlie-doos. I learn more from stuff like this than any book on craft and most workshops I've been in 😂
Not only will I forgive you one more of these chatty posts, but I will thank you so much for them. They feel like notes from a friend. This is such a lovely space, and your willingness to just open up your process and let us in is so generous and warm. I find it really helpful, while sitting at my table writing, this summer, to remember that you are doing the same thing. Just...putting down what comes up, and then seeing how it feels. And then adjusting it. Etc..etc..not magic. Or, when I think about it, maybe it is magic. But the secret is that it's magic that is available for the asking, it's not reserved for the REAL artists. Thank you, again, for letting us in, and taking us along.
Glad you have completed your move safely, George. We have just landed in Seattle after a nine day drive pulling a trailer from Atlanta. In fact we’re at Costco now, having just dropped off the trailer and grabbing a few necessaries to get life started here.
I wrote and finished a book in the past three place we lived, my first. I kept all the drafts as well. I hope someday to have a set of plastic tubs as you do.
Also, I listened to a great many podcast interviews of you and listened to Lincoln in the Bardo on the trip, so I kind of feel as if you kept me company on the journey. Thank you for that.
Best wishes to you for the new semester. See you Sunday and Thursday!
Others have said it a bit differently, but I get so much encouragement for experiencing writing as a living process from your sharing of drafts and notes. Your process, George, has been alive and lived in your old shed, as it is in the new. Setting as character. You remind me over and over again that writing is, in a surface way, a thing that I do, but the process is how I spend much of the time living my life. Thank you.
I’m up here in a “room of my own”, that my family felt I should have. It is stacked with notebooks from many writing retreats. My favorite was with Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down to the Bone and how could I forget Broadleaf. I won two big batteries for being the last one in a run up the kill. I was in my 40’s the. I cannot get rid of my treasured notebooks, and pieces of paper, napkins, newspaper with my ideas as soon as they shouted out at me. But I must. Now in my last phase of my life, I am pleased and so satisfied that I had 2 books published and now on a third. Did not make any money but am so grateful that I did it. Thanks so much George I knew who you were the moment I read your book. And now I feel a lightness and gratitude just by being able to write this.
I need to bookmark this post for the inevitable day I move from our current home. It's the place where my girls were toddlers, started preschool, weathered a pandemic, have had a million living room dance parties, became "big kids," etc, and so on and so forth... The thought of leaving here sometimes feels like I'm abandoning the memory of those little girls (who, in all truth are still rather little girls, just not AS little as they once were) – which of course I'm not but ACK. It's tough.
It's a kindness and so helpful to see someone leave a beloved place with such grace and gratitude. It gives me a little nudge in the direction of thinking my someday move will be okay. Thanks, as always, George. I really enjoyed these posts.
Let's hope there's a fecund shed in California awaiting. I miss the old shed shown here and I've never been there or seen it! Such is the romance of the good writing shed and this one is particularly romantic. The short and the sacred - sniff, sniff and a good honk into the hankie
"These places, these places, this short and sacred life…" Indeed.
Thank you for sharing these remembrances, George. To my bones, I understand how a place can be a pal. Your encomium to your home, well loved, lived, and worked in, has been beautiful and moving. I hope that it’s been useful to you to share this process and some of the gold you’ve mined with your finds.
The involuntary look inside your head is amazing. I’m so glad you saved it. What strikes me most is how all those characters -- varied as they are -- seem to posses what is a hallmark of not only your work but your way of being, that is, characterized by a sense of well -meaning and kindness. Even when your characters are doing things that will not serve well, there is always the sense of their fundamental striving to be the best they can be and the interconnectedness among people despite their differences. I’m not sure if what I’m saying makes sense but to my sensibility, it’s all there, in the look inside the makings of your mind.
Time and memory, hoo boy, indeed.
For reasons I can’t exactly explain, the phrase that comes to mind is “life and the memory of it,” from Elizabeth Bishop’s poem called “Poem,” which is about a pretty worthless painting that’s been handed down (as Bishop herself was) from family member to family member. In the poem, the painting (done by an Uncle) is given to her. At first Bishop can’t warm to it; a painter herself, she can appreciate the technical details, but it’s not until she “recognizes the place,” that the poem changes and we feel her nearness to it and to the uncle who painted it. I hope the poem, below, resonates for you and others herein.
Warmly, and with gratitude,
Robin
POEM
About the size of an old-style dollar bill,
American or Canadian,
mostly the same whites, gray greens, and steel grays
-this little painting (a sketch for a larger one?)
has never earned any money in its life.
Useless and free., it has spent seventy years
as a minor family relic handed along collaterally to owners
who looked at it sometimes, or didn't bother to.
It must be Nova Scotia; only there
does one see abled wooden houses
painted that awful shade of brown.
The other houses, the bits that show, are white.
Elm trees., low hills, a thin church steeple
-that gray-blue wisp-or is it? In the foreground
a water meadow with some tiny cows,
two brushstrokes each, but confidently cows;
two minuscule white geese in the blue water,
back-to-back,, feeding, and a slanting stick.
Up closer, a wild iris, white and yellow,
fresh-squiggled from the tube.
The air is fresh and cold; cold early spring
clear as gray glass; a half inch of blue sky
below the steel-gray storm clouds.
(They were the artist's specialty.)
A specklike bird is flying to the left.
Or is it a flyspeck looking like a bird?
Heavens, I recognize the place, I know it!
It's behind-I can almost remember the farmer's name.
His barn backed on that meadow. There it is,
titanium white, one dab. The hint of steeple,
filaments of brush-hairs, barely there,
must be the Presbyterian church.
Would that be Miss Gillespie's house?
Those particular geese and cows
are naturally before my time.
A sketch done in an hour, "in one breath,"
once taken from a trunk and handed over.
Would you like this? I'll Probably never
have room to hang these things again.
Your Uncle George, no, mine, my Uncle George,
he'd be your great-uncle, left them all with Mother
when he went back to England.
You know, he was quite famous, an R.A....
I never knew him. We both knew this place,
apparently, this literal small backwater,
looked at it long enough to memorize it,
our years apart. How strange. And it's still loved,
or its memory is (it must have changed a lot).
Our visions coincided-"visions" is
too serious a word-our looks, two looks:
art "copying from life" and life itself,
life and the memory of it so compressed
they've turned into each other. Which is which?
Life and the memory of it cramped,
dim, on a piece of Bristol board,
dim, but how live, how touching in detail
-the little that we get for free,
the little of our earthly trust. Not much.
About the size of our abidance
along with theirs: the munching cows,
the iris, crisp and shivering, the water
still standing from spring freshets,
the yet-to-be-dismantled elms, the geese.
Look, I went to Seminary, so I’ve got a lot of absorbed biblical knowledge (and occasionally some understanding). Because of that, it’s hard not to think of how Jesus taught his disciples (which was just to invite them into his life, to see how he lived) when I think of this story club.
It’s not often we are taught this way these days (where we see fewer apprenticeships), hence the Jesus example. But I think this generosity in sharing habits, thought processes, evolution of style and practice - just being an open book is more helpful than a book just giving advice. Although, I have benefitted from those as well and I will still recommend them to others - not trying to disparage books I’ve very much loved.
But there is something about seeing behind the curtain that really clicks that advice into place. I feel very lucky to be a part of this.
Really not trying to push us into that cult that people joke we are in by comparing George to Jesus LOL. It’s just the main example I could think of that showed teaching as bringing people into your lived life.
thank you george!
and goodbye shed!
shedding a tear as you tear yourself away from the shed!
Thank you, George! Your "notes to self" are well worth the price of admission! Right now I'm pawing through Word folders and docs, hard copies of a bunch of drafts, lots of notes, and it seems like madness sometimes. I've been writing for a long time, and still it is so good to see that other writers and other stories go through much the same mayhem! Love, love, love to you!
Seeing your notes, George, leaves me feeling so incredibly happy. I do similar kinds of notes to myself--I can't really think otherwise, or see what I've written, or figure out where I've made a wrong turn or even a correct one. (Of course, my eventual outcome is quite different from yours as most of my stories are disasters....but you get my point.) You write something, you get it down, and then you look at it, you ponder it, you make notes, you make a kinda sort of outline, you dig deeper, you look for connections, you look to see what it is you are saying. God, George, seeing you DO this is just wonderful. "She thinks happy loving thoughts." "Maybe the geodes are out there" "From SOMETHING to..." THANK YOU for sharing this! So generous of you!!
Regarding your move: I'm really glad you've got Paula with you. May the two of you enjoy many loving years together in your new home.
Thank you for sharing this! I cannot stress enough how helpful it is to see these notes and scribbles and doodlie-doos. I learn more from stuff like this than any book on craft and most workshops I've been in 😂
Not only will I forgive you one more of these chatty posts, but I will thank you so much for them. They feel like notes from a friend. This is such a lovely space, and your willingness to just open up your process and let us in is so generous and warm. I find it really helpful, while sitting at my table writing, this summer, to remember that you are doing the same thing. Just...putting down what comes up, and then seeing how it feels. And then adjusting it. Etc..etc..not magic. Or, when I think about it, maybe it is magic. But the secret is that it's magic that is available for the asking, it's not reserved for the REAL artists. Thank you, again, for letting us in, and taking us along.
Glad you have completed your move safely, George. We have just landed in Seattle after a nine day drive pulling a trailer from Atlanta. In fact we’re at Costco now, having just dropped off the trailer and grabbing a few necessaries to get life started here.
I wrote and finished a book in the past three place we lived, my first. I kept all the drafts as well. I hope someday to have a set of plastic tubs as you do.
Also, I listened to a great many podcast interviews of you and listened to Lincoln in the Bardo on the trip, so I kind of feel as if you kept me company on the journey. Thank you for that.
Best wishes to you for the new semester. See you Sunday and Thursday!
You’ve shed your shed, George.
Others have said it a bit differently, but I get so much encouragement for experiencing writing as a living process from your sharing of drafts and notes. Your process, George, has been alive and lived in your old shed, as it is in the new. Setting as character. You remind me over and over again that writing is, in a surface way, a thing that I do, but the process is how I spend much of the time living my life. Thank you.
Sacred life and sacred places, like this one. (Reading this, I feel like I just moved as well.)
I’m up here in a “room of my own”, that my family felt I should have. It is stacked with notebooks from many writing retreats. My favorite was with Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down to the Bone and how could I forget Broadleaf. I won two big batteries for being the last one in a run up the kill. I was in my 40’s the. I cannot get rid of my treasured notebooks, and pieces of paper, napkins, newspaper with my ideas as soon as they shouted out at me. But I must. Now in my last phase of my life, I am pleased and so satisfied that I had 2 books published and now on a third. Did not make any money but am so grateful that I did it. Thanks so much George I knew who you were the moment I read your book. And now I feel a lightness and gratitude just by being able to write this.
I need to bookmark this post for the inevitable day I move from our current home. It's the place where my girls were toddlers, started preschool, weathered a pandemic, have had a million living room dance parties, became "big kids," etc, and so on and so forth... The thought of leaving here sometimes feels like I'm abandoning the memory of those little girls (who, in all truth are still rather little girls, just not AS little as they once were) – which of course I'm not but ACK. It's tough.
It's a kindness and so helpful to see someone leave a beloved place with such grace and gratitude. It gives me a little nudge in the direction of thinking my someday move will be okay. Thanks, as always, George. I really enjoyed these posts.
Let's hope there's a fecund shed in California awaiting. I miss the old shed shown here and I've never been there or seen it! Such is the romance of the good writing shed and this one is particularly romantic. The short and the sacred - sniff, sniff and a good honk into the hankie
Also, thank you for being such a wonderful role model for letting go of places and stuff!