–Sweet William, Sunday, June 10, 2007, photo © 2007 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
We completed the 11 hour drive from Georgia to Pennsylvania at midnight last night. We took our time driving, soaking in the Blue Ridge Mountains, whizzing under the green sign for Virginia Tech, stopping at the Waffle House and Cracker Barrel for slow, relaxing meals.
My mother and I were both exhausted this morning. We slept late and I woke up to a pot of French Roast. “Let’s sit on the breezeway and drink our coffee,” Mom said. “I’m exhausted.” I knew exactly how she felt. It was something I had not bargained for.
I wonder what color exhaustion is?
It is something to consider when planning to research a memoir. Note to self – next time plan in down days, days of silence, writing, and processing. If you go, go, go you are bound to hit a wall. I’ve been away from the routines of home for 15 days. I’m longing for time to myself. To process. Write. To sit with everything.
For now, I’m heading over the river to see my brother’s new place. This time the Susquehanna. The color of exhaustion is not the Sweet William from my mother’s backyard. But their vibrancy gives me hope that I will feel electric and rested again.
Sunday, June 10th, 2007
QM — maybe the Sweet William IS the color of your exhaustion. Isn’t exhaustion, on some level, the result of work well done? This image seems quite well done to me.
All of your Ravine posts these past couple of weeks have been signposts for those of us vicariously journeying with you. You may be understandably exhausted, but the rest of us are pretty juiced; revved up, at the starting line; ready to take the baton of our pens and surge forward. Thanks.
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Sharonimo, thanks for your comment. It reminds me that the tiredness I feel is indeed the kind that is mixed with the amazing connections I made on this trip along with the great effort made to seek them out.
Perhaps you are right – it IS the vibrant color of Sweet William. I don’t know the history of the name, Sweet William, but I sure do love it.
My mother’s shrub roses were blooming, too. And another rose bush near the house was full of buds and one perfect rose smack dab in the middle. She cut it and placed it on the table yesterday along with one of the last peonies. The smell is just unbelievable.
I spent time with my family up in Pennsylvania yesterday and last night and was so grateful to be able to have that time. I feel so full of everything I have gathered, I don’t know what to do with it all. I think learning to sit and hold things around my writing last year was really good for me. I am using all the tools I learned about writing every single day. 8)
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QM, I’m especially glad to read your “note to self.” That sharp clarity on the road is always spot-on. I hope you have a few gentle days of re-entry to look forward to when you get home.
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Sinclair, I shall have a day, I think, though I need to look at my calendar. My emails have piled up while I’ve been gone and I’m not quite sure where I stand. It’s been sort of an altered reality while I’ve been travelling.
I’ve been digging up so much from the past. I kind of feel like I’m skirting the edges of a time warp. Or parallel universe. Really amazing. I’d love to hear if anyone else has ever experienced that while away from home digging for writing material.
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Absolutely. When I was in Holcomb, Kansas (researching the fallout of the Clutter murders years later) I felt like I had found a portal, walked across it, and was living with one foot in 2007, the other in 1959. And not just in a “Oh, this is really nice I’m meeting some people who remember Truman Capote and Harper Lee.” Yes, time warp. Parallel Universe. Yes. Perhaps this is a well-kept and delicious secret of being a writer.
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Teri, what a relief. I was hoping I hadn’t gone mad! I’d love to hear more about that experience in Holcomb some time. Or maybe you’ve written about it somewhere we can visit.
It is a delicious feeling, isn’t it? Like we get to actually time travel.
As I was excavating details of historical things that were happening during the times I want to write about, I had many thoughts of writers who write historical novels. They must be immersed in another century, another era, for months on end.
That sounds kind of wild and fun to me, too. And I bet their friends at some point think, “Oh, boy, we’ve lost them.”
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Glad you’re back safe, QM. I was worried about you being so tired and facing that long drive.
I admire writers who tackle the historical pieces. All that information to sift through, the holes to fill. They might complete years of research before they start writing (and I bet it feels good to actually start writing; at that point they must know their subjects in and out). I especially admire this form of writing because my head doesn’t hold data.
How do you organize your material now that you’ve gathered so much? Any particular method you’re finding that works well?
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ybonesy, while on the road, the photographs and notes went into paper file folders by family. The digital voice recordings remain on my recorder and I need to transfer them to my laptop before I go. Backup is important. If you lose something on the road, it’s gone.
In terms of organizing for book material, what is emerging is data organized around key family figures in my memories, people who impacted me the most. Then there is all the ancestral history around those key figures. I didn’t know that going in. But it’s become more obvious as I’ve started to think about how to organize it all.
When I get home, I hope to find space to be able to lay it all out and leave it out so I can live with it all around me for a while. That would be ideal.
One thing my mother and I did was print out the family tree before we left for Georgia. It was huge, 43″ by 53″. We rolled it up on a cardboard tube. When we got down there, we rolled it out and wrote information on it as we gathered it.
It’s very helpful (for me, at least, because I’m a hands on person) to have paper copies that I can reference and look at and make notations on. And not just everything stored on the computer. That’s all I know for now. I’ll keep you posted!
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QM: I’m curious, when you dove back into the south, did you ever pause to consider whether you could live there again? When I travel, I often find myself asking if it is a place where I could live. For me, the answer is “no” to living in Chicago, where I grew up, but “yes” to Wisconsin, where I have spent summers my whole life.
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breathepeace, that is a great question and something I thought about often. Could I live here again? The answer was no for me but it was mostly because of the heat and humidity. The other reason is that all of my support systems are in Minnesota. It would be so hard to recreate those at this point.
I’m not sure I could live in the South again. Sometimes when I go to western Montana where I also lived for about 8 years, I think I might be able to live there again. But I’m not sure.
I didn’t know you grew up in Chicago. What are your thoughts about why you couldn’t live there again?
When I was walking around bales of pine needles and the sweet smells of the tropical plants and flowers it bought up so many body memories about living there. The great thing about going back to places is that it stimulates memories.
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QuoinMonkey: I’ve lived in Wyoming for 30 years now. I really like rural life. I may not live in Wyoming forever, but I picture myself living in a rural setting, always.
My mother and Paul’s both still live in the Chicago area. We visit there often. My son, Sam lives in NYC and we visit there now, too. Big cities are a great place to visit, but I don’t want to live in one, for now.
I grew up on Lake Michigan. Living in the arid west, I have missed water. I visit lakes and the ocean often. I could live closer to big water someday.
I cherish having the ability to travel and visit places that I have lived…to soak it all in, but then, also, to leave.
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Hey QM- Only one leg left of the journey and tomorrow you leave that up to the pilot. Hope the flight goes well, and I’ll be waiting at the SuperAmerica just off Post Road, waiting for you to call. Can hardly wait to catch up, but most of all, just have you here, processing silently, tapping away at the laptop.
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Skywire, I want to come home to you the next time I leave the city. It sounds very inviting…”just to have you here, processing silently, tapping away at the laptop.”
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It is late Monday night and I’m ready to be heading home. I’m so glad you are going to be waiting on Post Road, skywire. I can’t wait to be there, silently tapping away at the laptop, in the place I now call home.
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Teri, I thought I would mention – my sister and nephew stopped by to visit tonight and have dinner before I left. My nephew graduated from high school this year and he mentioned that one of the books they read was, you guessed it, To Kill a Mockingbird.
I mentioned some of your adventures in Holcomb and In Cold Blood and how we had talked about Harper Lee in Taos last year. It was a good discussion. And it felt so good to be talking books with my young nephew. My brother also talked Carson McCullers at the dinner table. What a great way to end the week.
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It does my heart good to hear a high school senior is familiar with Harper Lee and Mockingbird, and I’m glad you shared a bit of my Holcomb story.
A fabulous way to end your two weeks. Amongst classic Southern writers.
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Safe travels, QM. Que te vaya bien.
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