Tracking the Human: nobody's a long time

Why blog?

Is it to write away sorrow and share joys?

Is it a living memoir?

Is it only for yourself? And maybe a few friends?

Is it to encourage people to continue their own writing or start writing?

Is it to exchange ideas and encourage other writers?

Is it to encourage people to buy and read my book, Tracking the Human: nobody’s a long time when it’s published.

All of the above

Here are some of the people I hope will read my blog and share their comments with me.

People who like to read, who learn through reading,
People who use the public library regularly.
People who are curious about other peoples’ lives and families.
People interested in the early to mid twentieth century in the mid West of the United States.
People interested in riding the rails, hobo culture, mental hospitals, and Christian Science.
People who are writers and write in order to know the world and themselves.

Here are some interesting people that might read my blog:

All of the above people were found on a shelf in our front bedroom. All are from an extensive collection of dolls that I inherited from my mother. Everywhere she went, my mother bought a handmade doll.

This person is particularly special:

Can you read what it says at the bottom of her apron?

Rebecca, who longs to travel.

Rebecca would be my ideal reader… a person who longs to travel, who is curious, who wants to meet new people and exchange ideas.

Welcome to all those Rebeccas (and Robertos) out there.

Enjoy reading family and fiction.

Why do you blog?

Send in your comments.

Thanks!

Who is a Writer?

Rediscovered: 8 Books about Writing

Why I am (not) a writer? Or am I?

While reading the blog http://howtoplanwriteanddevelopabook.blogspot.com I noticed a list of My Favorite Writing Books by the author of the blog, Mary Carroll Moore.

One book on the list jumped out at me, shouting, Remember me? The title of the book is Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, subtitle: Some Instructions on Writing and Life.

Yes, I do remember you. At least I remember the title. I wondered if I still had that book.

Searching through my bookshelves, I found it. Paperback. Pages yellowed. Purchased in Berkeley, California, 1995.

Rediscovered: 23 years later in Canberra, Australia.

Finding Bird by Bird was like finding a photo of a member of my family that I had forgotten about or pushed aside. Rediscovering this slim paperback book uncovered layers of myself, buried under years of life, of travel, of work, of family.

Just before I moved back to Canberra, Australia, after living in various countries for 20 years, I gave away 12 cartons of books. I slimmed down considerably. International living does that. Books are bulky and heavy.

Looking through my bookshelves in Canberra, I found more books about writing. There must be a reason why I had not discarded these books.

Here they are, listed in no particular order, with the place and year I acquired them.

The Writing Book, Kate Grenville, subtitle: A Workbook for Fiction Writers, Canberra, Australia, 1991.
Writing Down the Bones, Natalie Goldberg, subtitle: Freeing the Writer Within, acquired in Berkeley California, 1989.
If You Want to Write by Brenda Ueland, subtitle: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit, originally published in 1938, republished in paperback in 1987. Not sure where I got it.
Dear Writer, Carmel Bird, acquired in Canberra, Australia, 1992.
Letters to Alice, by Fay Weldon, subtitle: On First Reading Jane Austen, not sure when I acquired this book, published 1986.
Writers Inc: A Guide to Writing, Thinking & Learning, several authors, acquired in New York, 1989.
Several Short Sentences about Writing, by Verlyn Klinkenborg, acquired in Canberra Australia, 2015.

If I don’t think I am a writer, why for over 20 years, have I carried around to all the continents where I’ve lived so many books about writing?

What have I written during the years of wandering?

Features for The Daily Journal (Caracas, Venezuela) and The Chronicle of Higher Education (USA)
A book of poetry and sketches, Silence Spoken
Numerous letters to the editor of various publications, including The Canberra Times.
Edited three books: Bold Plum, with the Guerrillas in China’s War against Japan by Hsiao Li Lindsay; Peace and Milk: Scenes of Northern Somalia by James Lindsay and Fatima Jibrell and Solo vale si piensas rápido by Mehedy Lopez, a book of poetry in Spanish
A blog started in memory of my mother, wordpress.com.
Currently working on a novel based on events in the life of my father, Tracking the Human, nobody’s a long time

Writing has been embedded throughout my life and my work as an educator. Yet I struggle to consider myself a “writer”.

How do you define being a writer?

Do you think someone can learn more about writing from a book?

What are your favorite books about writing?

Are you inspired by books about writing?

Shell Shock

A shell is something beautiful, signifying containment, the protective hard outer layer, yet now empty.

Thus is the novel Shell by Kristina Olsson… beautiful, containing history, events, the 1960s in Australia (1960-1966), the building of the Sydney Opera House, conscription of young men sent to Vietnam, protest, sabotage and families torn apart. P1300633 Shell Front

Shell has flashing moments of insight, of great beauty that resonates, and brings the reader closer to the main character, Pearl Keogh. Her pain at separation from her brothers, who ran away from an orphanage where they were sent after the death of their mother, goes on and on. She’s lost track of her brothers and searches for them, fearful they’ll be conscripted and sent to Vietnam.

When she eventually finds her two younger brothers, her pain somehow dissipates. They’ve changed. Their values are far apart and irreconcilable from her own. How does Pearl keep going having achieved the goal of finding her brothers, yet realizing that they are farther apart from her than ever? Her calm acceptance of the profound chasm that has opened up between them seems implausible.

Pearl has an on and off relationship with Axel Lindquist, a Swedish artist working on glass sculpture for the Sydney Opera House. Their time together, their lovemaking, seems random and unfulfilled. Some of the most powerful writing in Shell is of soliloquys when each of them is delving into the loss, pain, guilt and shame of their individual lives.

Each character seems to live inside her or his own shell. They don’t quite make contact with others, P1300635 Shell back .jpg including family members. Letters between Axel and his mother, who is in Sweden, does portray some warmth in their relationship, but it is at a distance.

Considerable time is taken up in the book regarding the process of glassmaking, which could be a metaphor for their lives and the interrupted process of the construction of the Sydney Opera House.

Shell is a book to admire, to turn over in your mind as you would a beautiful shell in your hand and yet wonder what is missing.

A beautifully written book that somehow disappoints.

Compulsion

I never think of

my city

my country

As if I own it

I think

I’m here, now

When asked

Where are you from?

I answer

wherever I’m currently living

– Narrabundah (Australia)

– Nairobi (Kenya)

No, but where are you really from?

As if that will “place” me

confine me

describe me

Do I detect a U.S. accent?

Where are you from in the U.S.?

My (unspoken) reply:

How much time do you have?

Do you really want to know my life story?

All the places I’ve lived and worked

Is this my identity?

Least Liveable City in the World?* **

Have you ever been to Lagos, Nigeria? Would you like to go?

If so, then get a copy of Welcome to Lagos. Reading this book rewards you with an engaging and complex experience, just like the city itself.

P1300631 Lagos front

I visited Lagos many many years ago. I found the city to be fascinating, frustrating and overwhelming.

Chibundu Onuzo, the author of Welcome to Lagos is a Lagosian currently resident in the UK. In a recent interview Chibundu noted, There are so many stories in Lagos. Leaving Nigeria made me appreciate what I left behind.

Lagos has an incredible pull on Nigerians throughout the country. It sends a powerful signal of a range of possibilities that draws people into its vortex of human energy, swirling round and round.

Welcome to Lagos starts in the Delta when two soldiers desert. They pick up other people, including a guerrilla fighter, a young girl, and a battered wife, forming their own informal family, brought together by misfortune and the magnetic pull of Lagos.

The five manage to make it to Lagos and stick together, despite internal and external challenges. They survive a series of adventures that brings the reader into the heart of the contradictions within Nigeria.

Enjoy your visit to Lagos!

* The Economist Intelligence Unit report recently ranked Nigeria’s megacity of Lagos, with its 20 million population, as the second-worst city in the world to live in.

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2016/08/18/the-worlds-most-liveable-cities

** Chibundo Onuzo, the author of Welcome to Lagos, disagrees, Who says the most liveable city is in the West? Culture doesn’t just live in museums.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/19/vienna-lagos-economist-intelligence-unit-liveability-index

• How do you define “culture”?

• Where do you find “culture”?

• What do you think makes a city “liveable”?

• If you currently live in a city, is it “liveable”? Is it ranked by The Economist?

The Hate Race

The Hate Race

By Maxine Beneba Clarke

The Hate Race

Contrary to the title of the book,

a story full of love

for family

for friends

for acceptance in the face of hate.

Does hate exist permanently?

Is it cast in stone for ever more?

Even a stone can be worn down

over time

with the right conditions.

Reading The Hate Race

the reader becomes more aware

Brutal honesty: One Hundred Years of Dirt

Response after reading: One Hundred Years of Dirt By Rick Morton

I am not born in Australia.

I am not gay.

I am not male.

I am not a journo.

I did not grow up on a property in western Queensland, Australia.

I have mild anxiety attacks but usually keep going.

When depressed, I get into bed and cry.

I am trying to renew my extended family through writing a novel about my father.

I am trying to be a steadfast supportive mother.

My reaction to this book?

No words.

This book is so courageous.

How can anyone write about his inner self with such honesty and power?

100 Years of Dirt I heard something about One Hundred Years of Dirt on ABC Radio National. I don’t remember what. I picked up a copy at my public library. I put it on my stack of to-be-read books on the floor in a corner of my bedroom.

Whoops. An email reminder from the public library. I had only four days to read One Hundred Years of Dirt. I read it in three. The power of this book with all its exposed pain, lifted me out of a depression and back into writing. Thanks Rick.

Spoiler alert:

This book is NOT about living on a property in Western Queensland.

Dear Reader,

What books have had a powerful emotional impact on you?

Have you ever been amazed that someone could write with brutal honesty?

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