A Recent Scribble

I recently attended an event for writers focusing on our respective heritages. [This is a photograph of  some of my ancestors]

We were encouraged to write a little something. I wrote a synopsis of my life:

Like most U.S. citizens, I am a mongrel 
Within my veins and chromosomes flows the heritage of 300,000 years 
Or more 
I, like all people, came out of Africa. 
According to DNA analysis, my Paleolithic ancestors lived in northern Spain. 
I do not remember this. 
Family conversations alluded to more recent ancestors from the British Isles and Germany 
I do not remember this 
I do remember stories of early California ranches and farms – 
Buckboards and stage coaches— 
Not from personal experience 
From stories. 
Then I began to act in my own drama. 
First, following the standard American script: 
School, college, marriage, children 
Cooking, cleaning, washing clothes. 
Eventually, divorce 
Jobs that took me to many lands 
Learning, absorbing, respecting. 
I am part of all that I have met and learned. 
All that I have met and learned are part of me 
And I have only just begun.

Solstice Significance

There is a story about a June family gathering to celebrate my father’s birthday. Someone remarked that the date, June 21, was the longest day of the year. 

My paternal grandmother groaned, “Believe me. I know. It was the longest day of my life.” 

Charles Thacker McClure was born June 21, 1915 – 102 years ago. The only photo of him on my computer is when he was a baby on his mother’s lap. 

I have a million images of him in my mind and memory. He was good looking and smart and funny. [All my friends in my college residence would magically appear whenever he happened to visit.] 

However, his humor, often sarcastic, left emotional scars on my psyche and especially, on my brother’s. 

Writing my new book, Family Time, I came to understand where that sarcasm came from. And to forgive it. He filed for divorce from my mother, Roberta Anne Walker McClure (Bobbie) the same year I filed for my divorce. Not a good year. It took me a long time to forgive that. But I did. And that forgiveness enriched both our lives. Forgiveness works that way. 

So. For better and for worse, here’s to you, Dad. Happy Birthday.

A Journey Into the Past

For my new book, Family Time, I had done a lot of research about my ancestors. I combined that research with my own memories and imagination and voila! 

Some family history occurred in unfamiliar territory. I checked locales online but they were not imbedded in my consciousness. Still, I should have raised my antennae when I learned that one of the streets to get to Highway 41 from the Fresno airport was Fowler. My great grandmother’s maiden name was Nell Miriam Fowler.

 My antennae stayed down until I boarded the Yosemite Mountain Sugar Pine Railroad, a restored steam train whose purpose had been converted from logging to tourists. The setting was charming. The people there delightful. Still I didn’t get it until I boarded and from the broadcast narrative learned that this was a logging train.

Only then did I remember that for a brief period my great grandparents and their two daughters lived outside of Fresno and my great grandfather earned his living hauling logs down from the mountain on a buckboard. 

So, the forest we traveled through could have been the source of his cargo. And the hour-long drive down the mountain to Fresno could have been retracing his route. 

Back then, the round trip took a week. My great grandmother roasted a ham and packed other essentials to keep him going. My great aunts went to a local school and their mother taught Fresno ladies painting. 

I knew all this but until I boarded that train, I had no mental picture of their world. 

What a grand connection.

Riddle

This is both an explanation and riddle.

Guess what this is Prologue to:

PROLOGUE

It was winter so no one heard her screams.

She screamed at jars that wouldn’t open.

At phone calls from toll free numbers.

At meowing cats.

None of these was cause for screaming.

Fathoms deep in her psyche, unidentified pain tore out from her throat.

Avoided too long, it had metacicized.

Numb, she wandered her house – every room distinct, pleasing, filled with aspects of her life, her character, her taste. Travel souvenirs, photographs, paintings.

None of these was cause for screaming.

In the guest room: family photographs, her grandmother’s desk, a braid of buttons.

She stood, tears threatening.

“Help me,” she whispered, “please, please help me.”

Resurrection

I've started writing again!  I'm about a thousand words into a sequel to FAMILY TIME. Its working title: EQUAL TIME. I know its basic premise and how it will lead the reader around the world to a grand conclusion.

How did this happen? I'm not sure. The writing retreat (Oct. 15-17) was held at Sylvan Dale Guest Ranch on the most beautiful weekend we've had all fall. The setting was beautiful, the people were wonderful. There was magic everywhere. Evidence: stones balancing on stones were placed as river art by a prior guest.

I began by reading FAMILY TIME for the first time in many months. I spotted some flubs and failings but, overall, I really liked it. It's a good book. Transcending time and logic, nine women from my recent and ancient past join in my struggle to comprehend, forgive, then celebrate connections. EQUAL TIME will pay more attention to males and travel beyond the primary Colorado/northern Spain settings of its antecedent.

It feels as though I am coming back to life. On my last walk by the river I happened upon this butterfly -- my particular totem. 

It was an affirmation. I will carry on.

Stasis

My manuscript, FAMILY TIME (the one that is NOT a genealogical memoir) has been finished for almost ten months. It has been thoroughly reviewed and endorsed by my writers group and read by about six others. Most of them thought it was worthy. When I pitched it at the March Northern Colorado Writers conference, I got an editor interested (although it was only temporary).

But I have done nothing more to market it.

I haven't even written anything new, other than my blog and the Labor Day Sunday church service and children's story.

I am in stasis.

Yet this afternoon I am going to a writers' retreat. I'm taking two notebooks and six pens (and FAMILY TIME). I do not know what I am going to do there ... perhaps read FAMILY TIME again. Perhaps work on the ideas that are just beginning to think about forming.

I will contemplate the completed pages. And the blank pages.

It is time to move forward. To reclaim the writing energy that has been part of me since I could read.

What has stopped me? I have always been writing something. Always. My articles have been published, my speeches spoken, my scripts performed.

But now, nothing, For so long.

I think part of the problem is my age. The path to publication is so daunting, so long. There's part of me that thinks I will die before I can find an agent.

Stopping is, of course, illogical. It's like cutting off my own circulation.

So I will go. And see what happens,

Title Suggestions

After 40,000 words in the wrong direction I started over and kept going until I had a finished manuscript.

My problem was that I didn’t know what to call it. I didn’t even know its genre. The title that appears on my cards and on my website is Family Time – A Genealogical Memoir. The problem with that is that it isn’t a memoir. Most of the book’s events never happened.

What I did was trace the histories of two great grandmothers, two grandmothers, three great aunts and my mom – all of whom I knew when I was growing up – and bring them back through time to interact with me and … The ‘and’ is a mitochondrial DNA ancestor who lived 12,000 years ago.

I’ve let several people read it. Some liked it. Some didn’t. And one pointed out that it wasn’t a memoir. Finally admitting this, I relayed that fact to my writers group, asking for new titles.

They all knew the story – having listened chapter by chapter as it developed. They came up with several alternatives: “Family Journey”, “Family Visitors”, "Tea with the Ancestors", “Beneath the Family Tree”, “The Ghosts in My Parlor”, and “A Family Haunting”.

Then I pointed out that all nine (ten if you count me) main characters are women. So they came up with: “The Women Within Me”, “The Ladies of My Line”, "Moms, Grands, and GreatxN Grands" [I think they were getting tired], “Women to the 100th Power”, and “Exponential Women.”

All of these ideas were zapped through emails. When we met in person, we finally agreed. “Family Time” all by itself is just fine, especially since the manuscript seriously considers time – past, present, etc.

At the end of our meeting, we also agreed that our decision doesn't really matter. A publisher will probably change the title anyway.

So. Its title is simply: Family Time.

I still don’t know what its genre is.