A train whistle howls in the distance. I hear it every night at the same time. A night owl growl out the window. It comforts me. A ritual I’ve come to expect. Hearing. Ears. Sights. Smells. The smell of the sweatshirt I’m wearing, a combination of both me and Liz.
The taste of the sweet tea on the nightstand by the bed. Brushing my teeth with the pocket-size Crest, flossing in the morning on the way down the stairs, rubbing my hand across the cool oak banister. Coffee. French roast in the morning. While I am travelling it’s been International coffees with vanilla cream. Stirring, There is the ritual of stirring.
Travel rituals – checking emails, grounding on red Ravine, text messages from Liz, voicemails from home. Mostly I write late at night. And still try to get some sleep. The work here is exhausting. The rewards are many. When I am on a road trip, the rituals are different. I sometimes drive in silence, no radio. Mom fell asleep on the passenger side while I was driving through North Carolina on the way down, much needed sleep. I simply drove in the peacefulness.
Sometimes we talked, too, and caught up, and listened to old country like Patsy Cline and Merle Haggard. And Mom said she knew Brenda Lee when she was a kid. Lee’s family lived close by and she walked into the Winn-Dixie one night where Mom worked as a teenager.
I haven’t been home in a few years. I took advantage of the travel time to fill in the gaps. Other times, I slept and she drove. Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland, Pennsylvania. We landed here, near the Savannah. Rivers are grounding for me. The Savannah is the boundary between Georgia and South Carolina. It seems I have always lived near trains and rivers.
Something I’ve noticed when writing memoir, digging for gold, is to be around places, landmarks, music, and food that you want to write about. When you interview people, take them to these places, play the music, go out and eat the food. It excavates the memories even more when the senses are stimulated. Memory is connected to ALL the senses.
Daily travel rituals, the things I do every single day: shower, wash my hair, shave my legs, brush my teeth, put on clean cargo shorts and a T-shirt, walk down the stairs, drink two cups of coffee, eat a light breakfast, check email, check the blog, call Liz, usually morning and evening, write, take notes in my Supergirl notebook, check my horoscope, comment on the blog, make the bed, make sure I’ve got a pen and tablet in my pocket when I go out of the house, carry my camera and voice recorder.
I sit in silence first thing in the morning, and last thing before bed.
Everything in its place on my piles on the bed. I restore order before bed. Where Liz would normally be resting are notebooks and cords and camera bags and photographs I’ve collected from long lost relatives. Articles my mother has set aside for me to read, history travel books, information on the family tree. Maps and the TV remote. My bifocals fall from my wrist when I hit the tired wall and land right where they fall until morning.
I check the odometer when I drive. I try not to let the gas tank get too far below a quarter left in the tank. When we drove out to Clarks Hill and stopped for gas, a local rolled down his window and commented on Mom’s license place. It has GRITS (Girls Raised in the South) in part of it. He was a gruff looking guy with a scraggly beard and green baseball cap and scared me at first when he started yelling out of his beat up Ford pickup.
He wanted to make a point to ask me as I went to pump the gas, “Hey, does that mean the same thing up there that it does down here?” I laughed and said, “Yep, we were both raised down here. You can’t take the South out of the girl.”
At the moment, I’m finding it hard to concentrate while I write. So I want to gravitate toward making lists. It’s 1am and I have to get up fairly early. Time to myself is precious. So is time with my mother and my step-dad and uncle.
Time is a strange thing. You never know when you might not have it again. I keep digging. And the well is deep. It’s the daily rituals that keep me sane.
Wednesday Morning, 1am, June 6th, 2007
-from Topic post, Rich in Ritual
You’re a GRITS with a lot of grit. :O
I grew up on Merle Haggard. Ask your mom if she likes Marty Robbins, too. I like him even more than Merle.
I can tell, QM, that your senses are open. Look how exhausted you are, yet it’s all flowing into you and from you.
Time to myself is precious. So is time with my mother and my step-dad and uncle.
Line above is the story of my life, except in addition to my mother and dad, add Jim, Dee, Em. A constant dilema for a writer – how to get precious time alone when you’re taking it away from precious time with others?
I have to say right about now I’m envious of your being able to take this time and do this research. It actually sounds like bliss, the kind that exhausts. But more than that, I’m happy for you.
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ybonesy, not a minute goes by when I don’t feel like the luckiest girl in the world. To have an opportunity like this is something I never dreamed of. There are many things that have come together to make it happen. In the beginning, a year ago April, I set the intention to take this journey. I worked hard. Everything fell into place.
I’ll ask Mom about Marty Robbins. What was that song he sang, I remember the tune well. I’ll have to look it up. Old country is the best. I forgot Hank Williams. He was in there, too.
Thanks for your support. This trip IS a kind of writer’s bliss. And it’s so good to be able to share it with other writers.
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I wanted to make one more comment about this kind of excavation of memories and experiences – it’s actually the emotional part that starts to take a toll. I haven’t been down here in about 5 years. And I haven’t met, talked to, or seen some of these family members in 50 years. And these are close in generation family members.
That’s amazing when you think about it. The emotional impact is huge. It’s not to be underestimated in this kind of work for the writing.
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Down in the West Texas town of El Paso, I fell in love with a Mexican girl…(and then the ballad continues, he gets into a gunfight, gets shot, dies in her arms, I think).
Yes, old country is fabulous. I have an old Marty Robbins LP from the 1950s – it might be his first. When I play in on the record player, it has that scratchy, old quality to it.
Glen Campbell was also one my mom played (and Hank).
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QuoinMonkey: You’ve taught me a lot in this post. You are a great writer because you have cultivated great discipline, only you do it with such ease and grace that “discipline” doesn’t even feel like the right word. I learned this by the way you’ve detailed your daily travel rituals. I suspect that at home you have cultivated daily ritual also.
It reminds me of rituals we cultivated in the writing intensive, to help us be better writer’s…”step into the zendo with your right foot”…sometimes seemingly unrelated, but actually essential. You are a master.
I realized that when I travel, I often abandon the routine of my life and my regular daily rituals. When I look more closely, I realize that I often abandon them anyway, even when I’m not travelling. You have given me a key to deepening as a writer…to have rituals and to be faithful to them.
Thanks. It’s a big gift.
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Glen Campbell, one of my all time favorites. Wichita Lineman. I had that 45rpm and used to play it over and over and over….okay, I’m off to do more digging. Going to some cemeteries this afternoon. You can get so much information from the ancestors. They seem happy to tell their stories. 8)
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breathepeace, you taught me as well as we sat together last year in Taos. And with your postcards and letters. I was amazed that you could keep up the ritual and practice. I bet you are closer to them than you think. Thank you for your kind words.
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Thanks for taking me along on your trip south. I have traveled those roads many times over the years and can hear the thump, thump, thump of the tires crossing the expansion joints on the highway, wee the hardwoods give way to pine trees and watch for the berm to turn from the brown soil of the north to the red clay and sand of the south. This post made the sounds, smells, and noises of the south come rushing back as I read your blogs.
Suddenly I remember the sulfur smell of the fish hatchery on the way to great, great aunt Cassie’s house. Riding down the railroad tracks on the short cut to Granddaddy’s shop. The giant magnolias and rhododendrons as taller than the house, and pecan trees dropping their golden fruit.
Keep writing so I too can experience this with you. Thanks for the journey.
R3
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Such evocative images posted by R3! Like me, R3 was obviously inspired by this post. I think the line that got to me was: “It seems I have always lived near trains and rivers.” Seems like the first line of a great American novel. Quoinmonkey! Are you exhausted? I ask only because I’ve had to pause and take a breath or two after reading your recent posts because so much is coming out of you. It’s like you’re trying to keep up. At the same time, I sense bedrock peace at the core of your words. Thanks for sharing it.
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Oooh, I like that first line, too. QM, you should use it to open your first chapter!!
I agree. I keep thinking, how is she doing this. And I can see the opening, the pouring in, because it’s pouring out.
I have to say, QM, that for the periods of time you’re absent from the blog, I miss you. And then when you come back I get almost giddy from what you’re posting, and it gets me more excited about posting and writing and drawing. Like I just ate a bunch of Smarties and am on a sugar rush 🙂
(oops, I did and I am…)
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http://pressposts.com/Art/Rituals–Tired-Traveler–1am/
Submited post on PressPosts.com – “Rituals Of A Tired Traveler – 1am”
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ybonesy — do you separate the flavors when you eat Smarties? I do, from my least favorite flavor to my favorite. My least favorite is lime, then lemon, then pineapple, then grape, then orange — the best for last because they taste like Children’s Bayer Aspirin. I usually open two packs at a time and stack them like tiny poker chips.
In rereading thisI realized that I should have posted this under rituals. What’s your Smarties ritual?
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I open them up and grab a bunch of them holding the two ends tightly so they’re still in the same stacked line they were when wrapped. Then I drop them all into my mouth at once. I didn’t know they had different flavors. Really, this is new information for me.
Best for last because they taste like Children’s Bayer Aspirin??? Yikes, that line should cause mothers everywhere to store their Children’s Bayer Aspirin in the highest cabinet possible if they’re not doing so already. ;O
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Glad to open up your Smartie experience. I invite you to try a experiment, if you can break your own habit. Or, open up a bunch and put all the colors together and then re-wrap them according to color and then re-open and drop all the same color into your mouth at once. You must separate the Smarties in order to appreciate the different flavors. I think I stumbled upon this truth at some epiphanal moment as a child. Probably around the same time I found out that there were four Lassies and they were all BOY DOGS. I was undoubtedly so bummed out I O.D’d on Smarties.
About the Children’s Bayer Aspirin: truth be told, when I was a kid, I secretly popped them three or four every once in a while. Not enough for my mother to notice. I don’t have any in my house now. I’m too afraid. Tequila’s bad enough.
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I shall take you up on that invite. You know, I eat Smarties almost every day. One of the administrative assistants on my floor keeps a stocked basket. Do you know, she isn’t even tempted?! One side is Smarties, the other Almond M&Ms. And then a separate basket with Plain M&Ms (yuck).
So, yes, I will try each color so that I might appreciate the different flavors. I never knew my Smarties experience could get better. Thank you.
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The administrative assistant isn’t even tempted? Is she deaf, dumb and blind? The devil? A good Christian? Man, I would be SO INTO THEM.
I shouldn’t be so hard on that assistant, though. Compared to most corporate stocked baskets that have different varities of wrapped hard candy, mostly mint crap, she really stocks the mother lode with the Smarties on one side and Almond M&Ms on the other. Wow. She’ll be a senior VP in no time.
Be sure and let me know what you think of the different Smartie flavors and rank them. Give that administrative assistant my home office address.
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I am like ybonesy with the Smarties, open the wrapper, keeping them stacked, pop them all in my mouth at once and enjoy the burst of flavor.
I will try it your way to see if I like it as much. I use the separate method with jelly beans, keeping the best for last. When I was married I used to get frustrated when the Mrs. would come in at the end and swipe most of the good one’s I had saved. She wasn’t in on my secret way of eating them so I really couldn’t get too upset.
It is funny the patterns we get into with certain things. Maybe you should start a post on eating patterns so we can see everyone’s idiosyncrasies.
R3
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I can just picture it. Slowly you pick out the peanut butter and creams and chocolates and those flavors that really shouldn’t exist in jellybean form. You save up all the fruity flavors: green apple, watermelon, pear, all the citrus variety, raspberry. And then boom, with one fell swoop she’s decimated your booty. Unforgiveable.
Sharonimo: I had to give the administrative assistant $10 last week being as how I have been dipping from the basket more than my fair share. Shameless.
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ybonesy — $10 is the LEAST you could have done. We’re talking an UNLIMITED SUPPLY of Smarties. I’d totally add her to my will.
I love R3’s jelly bean confessions/musings . . . and I hope once you learned what your ex was doing, you didn’t have to wait too long to get her out of the house. Yes, what she did was unforgiveable; close to spouse abuse, if you ask me.
I love the idea about a post on eating-pattern idiosyncrasies. We could call it “Chew on This” or “Hard to Swallow.” Now I’m thinking about my Gummi Bear ritual . . .
no wonder I live alone.
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Yes, I like the eating pattern idea, too. In my family, we put red chile on our mashed potatoes. It’s a New Mexico thing.
So much to write about, so little time.
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R3, so good to have you along on the journey. I know you know some of these roads like the back of your hand. And I thought of you many times on this trip. I hope we can come down together again someday. 8)
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Smarties seems like an alive topic! I do love Smarties. But I only eat them at Halloween. It seems like the only time I actually have them around or have access to them. A writing topic on eating patterns would be interesting. I bet they are as varied as there are people in the world.
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Sharonimo & ybonesy, I’m taking note of your observations on good first lines. It’s good to hear from other writers on that because I sure can’t see them myself. Thanks!
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Sharonimo, I forgot to answer your question about whether I am exhausted – Yes! would be the short answer. There is so much coming at me and I am trying to keep up. I try to remember to keep breathing. And to take time to write. I do feel solid at the center. But on overload!
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One more post on Smarties.
I just read this to my 15 year old daughter (with the appropriate voices and expressions) and she reminded me of a ritual the girls in her color guard had regarding Skittles. Before any competition their instructor would pour a bunch of Skittles out in his hand and the girls would take them from his hand. Each girl, without any pre-planning, would take only “their color” and if their color was not there would wait until he poured more into his hand and hope their color was there. Erin somehow would always end up with the purple and green, they were the only one’s she would eat.
Maybe there is something to this separating food thing.
R3
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OK, now I’m curious. What was my voice like? Hopefully more like Dumbledore and not Snape.
Skittles are my third favorite candy, after Runts, after Smarties. I bet the team had some superstitions about how good the game was going to go based on whether their color showed up and when and how much relative to the other colors in the bag.
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Skittles get stuck in my teeth — too much like jelly beans. I don’t like hard candy coating. That’s why I prefer gummi bears over jelly beans. I don’t like grit hanging around in my mouth. I like candy that easily dissolves and/or melts in your mouth. I went to a Franklins General Store last night, where you can purchase stuff like Jesus and Freud action figures, and went to its huge candy carousel, and filled a small paper bag with Smarties. I hadn’t had any for the longest time, but had to have some after our exchanges yesterday.
Now the hard part: What are Runts?
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Sharonimo, I came back to this post to grab a detail and realized no one had answered your question: What are Runts?
I have no idea. I can’t answer it either. Maybe someone else will chime in. 8)
I realized when I came back to this post that it was the Smarties comments post. And when I got back to Pennsylvania from Georgia, I went over to another brother’s place on the Susquehanna River. His grandson was there and guess what his favorite food was? Smarties.
So he gave me a couple of packs of them. One I devoured right away – I ate them one after the other. No dissolving in the mouth or under the tongue. The second pack I just realized is somewhere in the luggage I haven’t unpacked yet. I think it’s in the pocket of my windbreaker. Maybe I’ll go grab them.
If anyone knows what Runts are, please chime in!
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Runts are powdery on the inside, hard on the outside. But not hard, hard. Rather, a colorful shiny shell, as if someone lightly shellacked the powder to seal it in. Their main feature, though, is that they are shaped like tiny fruit: yellow banana, purple grape, red cherry…that kind of thing. Oh, and you bite into them at which point they pretty much dissolve into the softer powder. Nothing in the teeth, although just like Smarties, Runts will cause tastebuds to get red and sore if you eat too many. (From experience.)
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