Tag: #amwriting

The recently finished holiday season was good for at least one thing: I spend more time writing. A funk spread over me for a few months as the garden wound down. Now, the desire to write is hard to contain. I feel some of what I recently wrote has been pretty good, both on this blog and in my autobiography. A couple things made the difference.

Perhaps the biggest is by reading more, I’m beginning to gain better understanding of contemporary affairs and connect dots. When I began using Goodreads to track my reading, the goal was to start reading books again. Somehow I had fallen away from book reading. When I made a commitment to read 25 pages per day and began tracking books read, the number of annual books read grew from 24 in 2018 to 69 in 2023. Quantity improved measurably.

Better than quantity, I’ve been able to correlate perspectives of history that didn’t previously come together. Because of my book selection process, I tend to read books with similar themes, with direct consequences. For example, the Reagan Revolution is clearer to me now that I read multiple books from different perspectives about it. As understanding deepens, it lays a foundation and context for my recent personal history. There is no reason to describe the wake of Reagan and neoliberalism, but rather assume it as background and build something positive from there. My recent letter to the editor of the Cedar Rapids Gazette is an example of what is possible.

It may seem like a small thing, but beginning to write Part II of my autobiography using chapters with names helped a lot. Instead of a Jack Kerouac-style automatic streaming of content from memory, the chapter titles break up the narrative and enable the reader (and the writer) to focus on one thing at a time in a long and complex narrative. This was a recommendation of a friend who read Part I early last year. It was a positive addition.

I’m filling in for Dave Bradley at Blog for Iowa until his family gets settled in Indiana. That means I have a commitment to provide at least two posts each weekend. The weekly obligation keeps me thinking about possible topics. At the same time, it helps organize the flow of ideas into buckets for that blog, this blog, letters to the editor, and my autobiography. Having a firm deadline to produce something for an audience helps maintain focus. Dave expects to be away for several months, and it will help my writing.

I deactivated my X account on Nov. 22, 2023 after 15 years on the platform. After giving Threads a thorough beta testing, I found a core group of accounts that provide diversity and interest so when I need social media, I have a responsive place to go. I would like to rebuild what I had on X: a strong group of Iowans interested in politics. It’s happening slowly, but I’m hopeful with a presidential election this year, it will come together by Labor Day. I’m still new there. The biggest change is the weight of X toxicity was lifted almost immediately. That has been good for my writing.

I don’t make New Year Resolutions yet feel like in 2024 I can accomplish a lot on my autobiography. By reading and writing more, the process gets better defined… and easier. That should make the writing better. If the holidays provided a needed boost to my writing, I’ll take it.

On the shortest day of the year, I grabbed a couple of stacks and started going through artifacts of my life. The current pile is mostly cards and notes sent for occasions long forgotten. I developed a new rule: If I can’t recall who sent an item, it’s off to the shredder.

The owner of his namesake home, farm, and auto supply company used to send an annual, hand-written birthday card while I was employed there. Apparently, I kept them all. Amy Klobuchar sent a Christmas card in 2019 when she was running for president. I think she will run again. Tom Harkin’s operation was a Democratic machine and I have a couple of his Christmas cards. I am sorry to see him gone from the U.S. Senate.

My friend Ed sends irregularly arriving letters about the Veterans for Peace chapter we founded. In one was a photograph of 16 of us at the Iowa City Public Library. I pulled that out and put it on the magnetic white board next to my writing table. The group suffered a bit as the World War II and Korean War veterans died. In this month’s letter it was uncertain whether our chapter would survive.

There was a ticket stub from the June 13, 2009 performance of Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare. Riverside Theatre produced the play on the Festival Stage at Lower City Park. Our child and I spent several nights there through those years, guarding the property from vandals. After our shift, we had breakfast at Hamburg Inn No. 2. I found a card from Ron Clark and Jodi Hovland thanking us for our support. One season, they both played mechanicals in Midsummer Night’s Dream, although I don’t recall if it was this performance. Theirs were some of my favorite performances in the many Shakespearean plays I have seen.

I found one of the last letters from Mother in an envelope addressed by my sister. Mother apologized for not baking a fruitcake due to complications with the aftermath of a root canal. I’m afraid the fruitcake tradition is barely alive at this point. If we were to make one, it would not be anything like hers. I believe we have family fruitcake recipes stashed away in piles and cookbooks. So, there’s that.

I found a recipe for Date Pinwheels provided by a friend from when we worked at the university. It is written in his hand. I pulled it out of the pile to stick in my hand written cookbook. My spouse and I were visitors to his apartment a few times. He was a fan of the Star Wars movies and had copies on the new technology of VHS video cassette. We watched a movie or two with him on VHS. We won’t be making any date pinwheels because one of us is vegan and we’ve yet to find a good substitute for eggs and butter in baking.

I finished the first stack and the next is a pile of letters, drafts and papers. Most of this pile is related to my autobiography. I kept most letters I received and there are many tucked away in different places. This pile has ones to which I referred in writing the first part of the work.

I printed the State of Illinois Bureau of Labor Statistics Report on the Cherry Mine Disaster on Nov. 13, 1909. My grandfather worked the Cherry Mine although was not present the day of the fire which claimed 259 lives. He worked in several mines over his long career as a coal miner. I learned more about coal mining than I thought possible from reading this report. It explained the mine, how it was dug, and has a detailed description of the sequence of events during the disaster. Being a coal miner must have been a drudgery, one with constant danger of being buried alive. This is a common thread throughout my side of the family where both Mother and Father were descendants of coal miners.

Eventually I will dispose of all this paper. There is too much to leave as an inheritance. The purpose of my autobiography is to distill a narrative from these diverse documents. For now, having gone through them, they are back on the sorting table until I refer to them again. It’s a fit way to spend part of the holiday season.

Yesterday we noted it has been 41 years since our wedding. We are still together. We spend more time together and need each other as we age. In these times, that a marriage lasted so long is atypical. That’s us.

I wrote about this moment in my work in progress autobiography:

If one looks at the wedding photograph of us standing in front of the church door, right after taking our vows, it represents what happiness looks like. The day was also a unique embarkation on a search for truth and meaning in our lives.

In the moment of that photograph, on a warm December day, within a small gathering of family and friends, at a modest reception, and with a wedding trip planned, we started the journey we continue today. Words can’t capture how we felt except to say, it was a defining moment full of every potential that life offers.

An Iowa Life, work in progress.

As we age, I do most driving and in-person shopping. Together we nurture our health. Like many marriages, ours had ups and downs. I try to focus on the good as I age. There is no denying we made a happy start. This photo is evidence.

Over the weekend I read Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. Apparently I was the only person in the known universe who had not heard of her. Printed right there — inside the front cover — are 17 other published works of her fiction and nonfiction. My copy is the 25th Anniversary Edition! I’ve been here all along. Where has she been?

I couldn’t write like her. First, I don’t think I am capable of her stylistic renderings. Second, I prefer a more utilitarian approach. Maybe number two is a reason people have trouble finishing my longer works. The book was entertaining with a couple of nuggets I might actually use. The namesake one, “Just take it bird by bird,” is something similar to what I heard long ago during a Dale Carnegie course, “An air traffic controller can land only one plane at a time.” So it has been without knowing Lamott.

I don’t need to review Lamott’s book because it speaks for itself. I posted a photo of the cover on social media and so many people commented it was one of their favorites. Besides, there are 9,858 Goodreads reviews already.

What I do want to say is it is important to take a break from writing and read a book on being a writer and all that means. At a certain point such books are an easy read with a lot of head-nodding. In a long term project like my autobiography is, one that stretches into years, it is important to walk away for a while and listen to what others say about writing to gain a sense of perspective and hope. Reading about how to write can also be a way to break writers’ block.

I’ve taken to opening the garage door and standing outside in the predawn darkness. Today, stars were out. Because of the layout of trees in the yard, I couldn’t identify any constellations. It was just starlight shining down on me with a reminder we are all stardust. To put it in more utilitarian language, the way scientist Neil DeGrasse Tyson did, “The four most common chemically active elements in the universe—hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, and nitrogen—are the four most common elements of life on Earth. We are not simply in the universe. The universe is in us.”

I’m ready to get back to writing.