A Geography of Reading

"It is by reading novels, stories, and myths that we come to understand the world in which we live." -Orhan Pamuk

Beachcombing at Miramar and What it Takes to be a Writer

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beachcombing at miramar - richard bodeI read Beachcombing at Miramar: The Quest for an Authentic Life by Richard Bode just as I was changing jobs earlier this summer and somewhat terrified that I’d never write again. Things are better now, as of this weekend I have two books started and a jumble of poetry I vow to someday edit, so I feel like I can finally talk about this book and what it means to me.

Isolation

Bode retreated to his house on the beach after a divorce from a marriage it sounds like he was never that into. And this book is a collection of essays about the year he spent beachcombing. Like many memoirs (most particularly Walden), it feels carefully trimmed to highlight the experiences that string together into the best narrative. I guess fiction does that too, but in this instance, especially as he talks about his isolation, I wondered if he was anywhere near as removed from society as I dreamed he was.

“Since they have never learned how to be by themselves, they have never learned how to be together.” – Richard Bode

My relationship with isolation is cloudy. A first born, there was a time in my life where I was very happy with only my own company, but I feel like my parents resisted this impulse in me. Perhaps because of the adorable baby brother who soon followed or just to fit into society in general. But somewhere very early I got the impression (in a way that was difficult to argue with) that I was supposed to be social. I started flitting from group to group engaging just enough to feel like I’d satisfied the requirements and then I’d go on to the next. But I never again settled into my own company.

Even in grad school for writing, a time when I should have been most deeply immersed in my thoughts, I was experiencing an immense push-pull between the isolation I craved and the importance of sociability that I’d internalized.

But there are times when a writer cannot be social. It’s perhaps the lonesomest of careers (and maybe that’s why it calls to me). Because I work with words, the slightest verbal interruption can throw me off completely—sometimes for the whole day (especially when I’m in that nuance of language place). I cannot even listen to music with lyrics.

And yet, I’m still pushing and pulling myself about whether that isolation is okay. Often all it takes is a declaration of intent that “I will be writing today and cannot be interrupted” for me to then turn around and follow my husband around the house all day (unlike Bode, I’m very lucky in my choice of spouse).

The best times—the most productive times— are when I find balance, as I believe Bode did, between the alone time required to think and create and the social time that almost everyone wants some degree of. To do that, I have to give myself permission to be alone sometimes and to be honest with myself about the times when I don’t.

Inspiration

“Where does your inspiration come from?” has to be the most frequently asked question of writers. With this book, Bode allowed himself time to think and to observe the world. Although his book is self-referential (inspiration comes from the very time and space that he’s writing about), I believe the magic of inspiration actually comes from an artist’s brain.

I’m not saying that artists have different ways of thinking than others—that would imply some sort of biological predisposition toward art I’m not prepared to champion—but I do believe the openness, fluidity, and tangential nature of thought are necessary to the creation of art. Because the magic of inspiration is actually the magic of connections that we make, of looking at the same thing as everyone else from a fresh angle. Some of that is allowing ourselves the time to think, and some of it is allowing ourselves the space to see whatever it is we are looking at in the light of our unique experiences (and then honing the skills to express that viewpoint).

“I have a task that is greater than all the labors assigned to Hercules. It demands that I live in the richness of this moment because that is all I have or will ever know.” – Richard Bode

Bode is just walking up and down the beach. But by being on that beach through the seasons, he sees the experience of being there in a different way. The thoughts in his mind are shaped by that presence and evolve into something a day visitor might not understand. It’s pretty wonderful.

And inspiration, as long as you are open to it, really is inexhaustible (I’m sure I’ll kick myself for writing that someday, but I do believe it). At work this week, I was treated to this presentation:

That was at a marketing conference. But because I didn’t have my head stuck in the “this is the place I work” vs. “this is the place I write” rut, this fabulous presentation inspired me professionally and personally. Not every part of this presentation will be tailor made for you. That’s the point. Pluck the parts that resonate and marry them with something else and go make work.

There is a line from Gattaca that is with me always. Vincent (Ethan Hawke) is explaining to his much more athletic brother how he beat him at swimming this vast distance when they were kids. He says, “You want to know how I did it? This is how I did it, Anton: I never saved anything for the swim back.” If you are saving back ideas for the next project or for the right moment, you are holding back a part of yourself. Go back to that presentation above. Check out slide 7. Then slide 8. 20. 21.

The time to make your best work about that burning issue is right now. Because tomorrow something else might be burning and you will have lost that moment forever.

Coping with Fear

“The individual who fears the criticism of others is no different from the one who seeks their praise. Both are shadow figures, fading into the landscape, lacking the will to act for themselves.” – Richard Bode

Just before that quote, Bode relays an anecdote about Georgia O’Keeffe that is likely apocryphal, but the sentiment is important. He says that before ever showing her work to the world, she set up a show for herself to decide what she thought of the work. She had the wisdom to look into the work and to see it for all of its flaws and also its successes. She also had the wisdom to know that it was her critique that would be the most valuable to future work.

Making art is scary. I’ve been writing about that a lot lately, here, here, and also in my notebooks. But that’s life and it’s time to move on.

I found a lot of comfort this week talking with a beloved writer friend about art and fear. We walked through Madison Park with her kids and talked about our work and the things that are inspiring us. She is a person to whom it is safe to say aloud the things I haven’t worked out on paper. I even let her thumb through notebook #1 – the next novel. The point is that the world is a lot less scary once you find those people to whom you can open up. My husband hears about my emotions and my writer friends hear about my art. And everything else must go into the work.

“I am on my way toward the center of myself, doing my best to strip away layers of sham and pretense as I go along.” – Richard Bode

Beachcombing at Miramar is a very Buddhist book—right down to the quotes from Thich Nhat Hanh. And I love it. It helped me find some of my center during this latest transition, and re-reading it today it helped me all over again.

What are the books and influences that shape your life as a writer? I’d love to hear from you in the comments.

If Beachcombing at Miramar is your thing, pick up a copy from Powell’s Books. Your purchase keeps indie booksellers in business and I receive a commission.

Regarding the Bosnian War with Susan Sontag

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Dubrovnik
Most of the roofs in Dubrovnik are bright red–a sign that they have been recently replaced.

Of the Bosnian War, I remember only images on CNN of the bombing of Sarajevo. My excuse is that I was a teenager, though I lived for a year in Eastern Europe during the height of the war and should have been more aware. I later studied it in Political Science, but I could never find an entry point to start to relate to it on a human rather than academic scale. Even Dubravka Ugrešić’s The Ministry of Pain felt abstract despite her incredible depiction of the war’ effects on one person. Reading more relatable books by Ismet Prcic and Saša Stanišić in preparation for our trip humanized the war, but the former Yugoslavia still seemed like a far off place. As Susan Sontag writes in Regarding the Pain of Others, “The memory of war…is mostly local.”

Flying from Paris to Zagreb, I wondered at the large, orderly collections of dark rectangles on the ground. They were too small to be cars. As the plane descended, I realized they were all near churches and that they must be graves. They looked so fresh and plentiful. I started to feel leaden.

regarding the pain of others - susan sontagI tried to forget about the graves as we flew to Dubrovnik and entered the beautiful, walled old Town. For a couple of days I was a right good tourist exploring the sights and spending money. But I kept looking for signs of the war. The guidebook said the only evidence we would see of the bombing of Dubrovnik was the new red tile roofs. It wasn’t until walked the walls that I saw that most of the roofs were the bright red of new tile. Almost no building was left untouched. I wanted to think that there were other reasons for some of the new roofs, but there were so many of them…I was curious and I wanted to know more, but I didn’t know who to ask and I didn’t want to be rude. I wanted to see the place for more than its war experiences, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

On our final day in Dubrovnik, we turned from sunny Stradun street with its masses of tourists down a narrow side street and stepped into War Photo Limited. There were three main exhibits that day: Blood & Honey by Ron Haviv, Srebrenica Genocide 11/07/95 by Tarik Samarah, and Bosnians by Paul Lowe. Wandering though those exhibits, I saw images of the aftermath of the Bosnian War: mass graves, survivors being DNA tested to identify corpses, and bones that no one bothered to bury. Sontag had seen these photos. She wrote broadly about images from the Bosnian War and specifically about Ron Haviv’s image of a Serb kicking a Muslim woman’s corpse.

There are images that recur in conflict and thus war photography—starving people and mass graves are all too common. Sontag writes “shock can become familiar” and this exhibit contained some images familiar from conflicts past, including images of dolls as a metaphor for the loss of innocence. I had seen images like these from World War II and Viet Nam but they didn’t speak to the unique character of the conflict and I wished I could have learned more from them. In contrast, one of the more affecting images was of a decomposing corpse and the Koran that had fallen from his hand. The image spoke specifically to this one conflict and to the young man who was torn from his home and who was likely praying when he was murdered. I thought of the families detailed in Prcic and Stanišić’s books who had been forced out of their homes and then murdered. One of my favorite photographs showed people congregating for water outside bombed out buildings. I thought of Prcic’s hero and the lengths he went to in order to shower to impress a girl and how Prcic found a way to marry the perfect detail in a story with something that spoke to the larger condition.

When I saw an image of an American law enforcement agent searching a field for graves, I found my connection to this story. Madeleine Albright wrote in her autobiography about her disappointment with the way the US handled the Bosnian War—with how long it took us to get involved. I don’t advocate for widespread US intervention, but I do think the world community has a moral imperative to intervene when civilians are being killed. When genocide is being committed. After all the time I spent reading about the Holocaust as a child, I thought it couldn’t happen again, that we knew better. Part of what I was experiencing in Croatia was disbelief that it did. In Bosnia, Rwanda, Syria, and so many more places.

Sontag writes, “One should feel obliged to think about what it means to look at” war photography and I have been thinking about my motives. The exhibit did not quell my curiosity. I still examined buildings for bullet holes and wondered about the story and family behind each burned out house. In fact the exhibit made me more curious, but it also framed that curiosity. Instead of worrying about the base nature of humans, I am focusing on the history. I am learning where places like Vukovar, Tuzla and Srebrenica are on the map. I am thinking about the wonderful, friendly people we met throughout Croatia and Slovenia and about how they are like people everywhere. It’s far too easy to watch war on the TV or even to change the channel. Somewhere inside I have always been terrified that war could happen to me and I think that is the real reason I have disengaged. But the Bosnian War is no longer a war that happened somewhere to someone else. War can happen anywhere to anyone. I hope never to experience it, but I’m no longer going to pretend it couldn’t happen to me. I’m not going to let my fear be an excuse for ignoring what is happening in the world.

If this review made you want to read the book, pick up a copy of Regarding the Pain of Others from Powell’s Books. Your purchase keeps indie booksellers in business and I receive a commission.

Kira Salak and Adventures in Travel (Writing) with The White Mary

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the white mary - kira salakI read The White Mary by Kira Salak on a flight from Seattle to Paris at the start of my first trip abroad in four years. The story of a journalist on a quest for her idol who the world thinks is dead but she thinks might be alive in the deep jungles of Papua New Guinea seemed like an auspicious start to my own (much tamer) adventure: a family trip to Croatia.

I used to be a citizen of the world. I’ve visited twenty-four countries, lived on three continents, and can converse in five languages. Except that most of that was before I graduated high school. Though I have done a lot since then to become the person I want to be, I have neglected my wanderlust and let my language skills fester. I had become someone who only travels in the company of a tour director and I became afraid to step outside that bubble.

Contemplating the rigors of travel with a coffee in the ruins of Roman Emperor Diocletian's palace
Contemplating the rigors of travel with a coffee in the ruins of Roman Emperor Diocletian’s palace

In contrast, Kira Salak is a travel writer by training and it’s evident in her lush descriptions of foreign people and places. Her protagonist, Marika Vecera, is determined, culturally aware (mostly), and savvy. Things I used to believe about myself. As I read about Marika’s kidnapping in the Congo, I was worrying I wouldn’t be able to communicate well enough to order breakfast. When she was coordinating her trip to the deep interior of Papua New Guinea, I was trying to figure out if I was capable of getting bus tickets from Dubrovnik to Split. I realized how fearful I had become.

The White Mary is engaging overall and I liked reading it. The love story is a little empty—it feels like Salak was as uninvested in it as Vecera was—but I am glad I read this book and even more glad that I passed it along to a fellow traveler.

Croatia, though a fantastic trip, turned out to be much more mundane than the wilds of the South Pacific. I managed to communicate in very basic Serbo-Croatian, German and Slovenian, though most people spoke English. We were never more lost than a missed freeway exit, and I even got to take a train. I was mistaken for a local (my favorite!) once and very briefly.  I don’t think I’ll become a travel writer in the near future (unless…), but at least I now remember that the world is full of people, not scary monsters, and I can navigate the globe if I only try.

If this review made you want to read the book, pick up a copy of The White Mary from Powell’s Books. Your purchase keeps indie booksellers in business and I receive a commission.