Tag: Writing

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Writing

Stormy End of Autumn

Trail Walking.

Rain and wind are blowing leaves from most deciduous trees, revealing squirrel nests in the canopy. Some, like the Pin Oak, hang on to their leaves until next year’s growth pushes them out. Most everything that’s coming down before winter has come down on the third day of stormy weather in Big Grove Township.

I set the election aside to focus on writing.

I’ve written about 60,000 words of the second part of my memoir. I feel I should start over. Writing the first part changed the way I look at writing memoir. I should incorporate what I learned, and will. That means a complete re-write of the outline and a chapter by chapter re-writing of the story. It will be a different book than what I first envisioned and hopefully more readable and engaging.

I left the story in Iowa City during the summer of 1981 just before President Ronald Reagan fired the PATCO air traffic controllers to break their strike. Reagan and his conservative progeny’s deconstruction of the world in which I grew up became a constant theme during my life. During summer 1981, they were just getting started.

There was a brief window of about a year before I proposed to my now spouse on Aug. 18, 1982. In that year, I lived in the Iowa City of which we’ve heard tell as a writer’s haven. I moved from my high school friend’s home to an apartment on Market Street. I found a job with the University to pay my bills. I sought to be a writer and did what many would be writers do near but not part of the writer’s workshop. It was something of a plan. It is important to recapture that time because in several ways, it is archetypal of what creative Iowans do to cope with this barren agricultural state which is increasingly devoid of creativity.

Because my focus was on writing, I have plenty of journal entries from that time to re-read. That summer, I compiled a number of my essays into a book called Institutional Writings. I printed 15 copies and distributed them to friends. I was determined to be a writer even though I wasn’t sure what that meant in 1981. Iowa City wasn’t a solution for me. It was more a transitional place.

I accomplished something significant today. I got started writing Part II. There is much to be done yet I’m moving, hopefully in the right direction.

Categories
Kitchen Garden Writing

Food In Situ

Backyard garlic.

I recently read The Cooking of Provincial France by M.F.K. Fisher, et. al. It raised awareness of how cuisine can be rooted in specific locales, based not only on locally-grown food products, but on the soil, air, and water specific to a place. Local residents literally spring from the landscape and food grown there, according to the authors. Regretfully, French cooking is immersed in animal products. Separate the dairy, beef, pork, lamb, fowl, and fish and it would not be French cooking. It cannot exist except in situ.

What does in situ mean?

In the United States, we have a long tradition of destroying places and then building settlements as if on a blank slate. Natural vegetation, evolved over hundreds of years, was razed, and replaced with farms. Then, when the farm couldn’t make it — even with government subsidies — it was parceled off and sold for residential properties.

We built our home in such a farm conversion and prepare varied meals in the space we built. None of it is native except for the harvest from our backyard garden. Those seeds and seedlings come from elsewhere and not here. The phrase in situ, in this context, includes some aspect of food grown locally.

It seems ironic that as much “food” as is grown in Iowa and in the fields surrounding our residence, most of the corn, soybeans, wheat, hay, and other commodities are not grown for direct human consumption. Much of these foodstuffs are used either in animal feed or as an ingredient in industrial processes like distilling ethanol, or making biofuels or corn syrup. In Big Grove Township, there is no in situ.

That’s not to say our household lacks a cuisine. Clearly it has a distinctive one. Perhaps the most characteristic food we prepare is tacos. That they are made from raw tortillas from the wholesale club, greens and tomatoes grown at home, and produce we sometimes grow ourselves and sometimes don’t, makes them ours. The Mexican oregano we use also lends distinctness to the dish.

The important thing is when I make tacos, I’m not trying to copy a dish I saw elsewhere. I’m creating something unique, from scratch, with ingredients we grew or have locally available. I use tomato sauce that varies a lot (just as each tomato picking is different). How I use each jar makes a difference in the outcome of the tacos.

Rather than produce a certain kind of soufflé according to the science and rules of French high cuisine, I’m more likely to scramble an egg or make an omelet. Sometimes I’ll make another serving of tacos, perhaps with scrambled eggs in it.

While a few people I know grow shallots, chervil, and tarragon at home, the seeds to grow them did not come from here. They may be typical of French cuisine, yet are not of here. It is important not to get too precious about certain ingredients and where they come from. If I grow these, I use them until they are gone.

Over the years I posted many opinions about local food. Today I’m not sure that matters as much as I thought. What I learned was the idea of local food is constantly evolving. I continue to purchase groceries from a large, retail establishment on a weekly basis. That doesn’t make me any less interested in available local foods. Am I a purist? No, I am not. Being a purist about food does not make sense. It is challenging enough to keep track of what local food is available and where.

I leverage locally grown food when it makes sense. The dishes I prepare are not any less good. So, I’m here, I grow food, and I’m cooking. I am still a latecomer to the upper Midwest, one who is trying to get by. What else can I do besides enjoy what I make here?

Categories
Writing

Starting Over

Autumn on the state park trail.

Just as a concertina began the musical Carnival! — slow, isolated, and alone — the path to writing again is picking up the rusty squeezebox and getting started. As I renew effort on this important project, I will be joined by a full orchestra with instruments, players, and settings while engaged in a jamboree of my life in the post-Reagan era. Everything that will fit in 250 pages, I will.

I learned a lot finishing the first part. Blending the past with the future, in terms of the time line was important to style. My omniscient narrator’s voice has the ability to span my entire life at once and I did. Anything else would be fakery. In the chapter on Joan Didion, I began with my discovery of her writing in while I lived at Five Points after military service, and blended my experiences with her writing through her death in 2021. By weaving the whole story into a single chapter, I both told the history and previewed what her writing meant to me. I can’t imaging splitting this story up. So it was with other topics.

The length of part one was about right at just less than 250 pages in the final book. I should keep part two a similar length despite the fact there is more to tell. Exercising disciple in sticking to a narrative is important for the research, and for the writing. I decided to hang the narrative on a timeline based on where we lived, beginning in Cedar Rapids, then Merrillville, Indiana (the Calumet), and returning to live in Big Grove Township in Johnson County, Iowa. Because the Big Grove section is so much longer, more than 30 years at present, I subdivide that with three breaks: my retirement from transportation in 2009, taking work at the home, farm and auto supply store in 2015, and the onset of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020.

The second layer is tracing the history of trucking industry deregulation. This includes the Motor Carrier Act of 1980, signed into law by President Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan’s reaction to the PATCO strike, and Bill Clinton’s NAFTA. The impact on American society of these things was broad and deep. My career in transportation positioned me to be in the middle of it as it unfolded. Plenty of books have been written about this. I want to write my story. I have been driving Interstate 80 to Des Moines the last few months. It is remarkable how truck traffic has changed. There is a story behind that.

The third layer is a broad brush approach to our family life in Iowa and Indiana. Ours was not a typical family life, beginning with our vegetarian food culture. We also thought differently about everything from politics to education to banking and finance to transportation to recreation. I hope this layer will be particularly meaningful to our child.

The fourth layer will be the impact of climate change on our lives and on our life in society. A changing environment, warmer temperatures, extreme weather, and public service, including my six years on the county board of health, all play a role.

The fifth layer is how my writing and intellect progressed. If I planned to focus on writing when we married, such focus diffused in the existential struggle to provide for a family. We divided labor in a somewhat traditional way, with me being the primary wage earner, and Jacque working at home during the early years. This had consequences for my writing and for our living. We had a good life, yet there were challenges.

Woven into these layers is my history of working on political campaigns, travel for business, gardening, and learning to live in the post-Reagan society leading up to the 2016 election.

Nothing is cast in concrete. This post is a start. Off we go! Now where did I put my concertina?

Categories
Writing

Recovering From September

On the state park trail.

My writing process was decimated during September. It will take time to get back in the swing of things. With four weeks left until the election, I probably won’t get in the saddle until mid-November. I just don’t feel like engaging in writing for the moment.

I doubt many of my candidates will beat the Republicans in this precinct. Politics won’t take a holiday until after the election. If it is like in 2020, the malarkey from Trump won’t end until January 2025 if he loses. I expect him to win Iowa yet lose in the electoral college.

Just a brief post today… to let readers know I’m alive. My interview with Thom Hartmann posts Monday. It may be the best one I’ve done with him. I hope you’ll return and listen to it.

So for now, it’s back to the kitchen and meal prep. When I’m cooking for one, one dish can make multiple meals.

Categories
Sustainability

Block and Tackle

Wild flowers continue to arrive on the state park trail.

Last night I decided to work on sleeping through. Surprisingly, I was successful from 8 p.m. until 3 a.m. Seven straight hours of sleep is a rarity in my world. One hopes to make it less rare.

It’s 50 days until the Nov. 5 general election. I figured out how I hope to fit in with the campaigns. I have the plan, now to work it. Easy-peasy, lemon-squeezy.

As winter approaches, there is a lot to get ready. I’m thinking about writing the second volume of my memoir. Last time, during the coronavirus pandemic, our restricted movement helped keep me focused on writing. This winter I must figure a way to regain that focus and set aside a multitude of distractions in the non-pandemic life. With a little work, I can do that.

It was a good call to finish and print the first volume of my memoir. While it could be refined, the fact of spending the money to print it forces closure. It is what it is and now exists in the world. This week, I’m sending copies to a dozen people I have known a long while. Along with the book, I’m sending a reply card to collect a few sentences about their reaction to it. I have a vague notion about what happens next. Basically there is a decision whether to put it out in the world with intent to sell some copies. Thus far, people have been supportive of my work.

At mid September, the garden is reduced to a few items which continue to grow. The main undertakings are finishing the tomato harvest, clearing a plot to plant garlic, and cleaning this year’s garlic harvest for storage. Certain crops did well and others, not so much. There was enough home grown food to keep me away from the farmers’ market. I’m hoping to find more hot peppers when I go out to the garden today.

This year has been weird in that my spouse spent a lot of time away helping her sister. Maybe with some luck and planning, we can get back to normal.

Categories
Writing

Post Scrambled Life

Trail walking.

My life was scrambled in August and early September. Now begins the task of putting it back together into something more coherent. My COVID-19 symptoms departed. The rest of my turbulent life settled into stability. Perhaps I have a platform to go through a neglected inbox, and my multiple to-do lists, to put a plan together. It seems clear I will need a nap or two as I go through my days. That is likely related to getting older and not a long-term effect of having had COVID-19.

My maternal grandmother had a heck of a time when she was my age, plagued by heart disease and adult onset diabetes. We are lucky she lived, mostly on her own, until age 92. Compared to her, my early seventies have been a cake walk. My health status begs the question, what shall be done with this gift of time? I will continue to write.

Hopefully regular visitors to this site will find something worth reading.

Categories
Sustainability

A Long Path Ahead

Trail walking in the state park.

The near-death experience that was my case of COVID-19, especially the hallucinations and becoming temporarily unhinged from reality, was a wake up call. Life can be snatched from us on a moment’s notice. I lived to tell the tale, and every day I wake in good health is a blessing.

What will I do with my remaining time? That is the wrong question. I will continue down the path I started so many years ago: to be a writer, to live a life where I enjoy good health, and where I have the stamina needed to take each next step. My relationships with family and friends are important, so is living in a just society. There is a whole separate life in this. I hope to embrace and cherish it.

The coronavirus upset my schedule to get back to work on the second part of my memoir. Once I get caught up in real life, I will take up that project. Publishing the first volume was an unexpectedly positive experience. Now I want to finish the second book so I can move on to other things.

Friedrich Nietzsche first said, “Out of life’s school of war — what doesn’t kill me, makes me stronger.” I’m not at the stronger part yet, although I’m building stamina as I walk the long path into the future.

Categories
Living in Society

Going Dark to Heal

I became ill beginning August 26 and have not recovered. On August 29, I tested positive for COVID-19 and visited a clinic that afternoon. I felt like I was going to die, but didn’t. Thanks to a dedicated local medical staff, I am on the mend.

On the plus side, copies of my memoir arrived this week. New writing will have to wait until the virus is in remission.

Thanks for reading my posts.

Categories
Living in Society

Les Grandes Vacances

Passport and Notebook

When I arrived in Paris in September 1974, the place was emptied of most of its people. I did not understand the cultural phenomenon of millions of French people flocking to the coast, countryside, and other vacation destinations, leaving urban areas almost deserted. A few shops were open in Paris that summer, although not many. Traditionally les grandes vacances happen in August, yet people were gone into the first week of September that year.

With my book at the printer, I’ve been taking an August hiatus from work on the second part of my memoir. Life goes on and for me there is no vacation. That’s mostly because there is no extra money to pay for lodging, meals and travel excursions. Vacationing is anathema to my current personality anyway. There are few destinations to which I am drawn these days.

Like the weekends during my trip to Brittany, les grandes vacances form part of my outlook while I spend more time in our Midwestern kitchen processing garden produce. August is about tomatoes, apples, leafy green vegetables and such. There are a few cucumbers and squash left in the refrigerator to be used. It’s not a bad tradeoff with traveling to the mountains or some such.

Four candidates for the Democratic nomination to be county auditor. (l to r) Neuman Abuissa, Shannon Patrick, Alex Stanton, and Julie Persons. Persons won on the first round of voting.

Saturday was the special convention to elect a nominee for Johnson County Auditor. Mayor of Swisher Julie Persons won on the first ballot. I know Julie from her involvement in the House District 91 campaign and believe she will make a good county auditor. In fact, all four of those running were qualified.

What I like most about the convention is the chance to talk to people I seldom see any more. In August 2024, there are way fewer of my cohort involved with county politics. Between deaths, retirements, and people moving away, I am becoming a survivor. If there were more interest in county politics in my precinct, I would have stepped down long ago.

I sat with a friend who recently published their memoir and is awaiting publication of another book. We talked about books and topics we choose to write about. They were an early reader of my memoir and we’ve done a lot together since we met in 2005.

Of course there were my local buddies. We are getting too old for this stuff, yet the fact is few younger people are willing to step up. We do what we want with regard to politics, hoping to advance Democratic causes and elect our candidates.

I commented to someone I watched more television last week than I have in the last ten years. It just felt right to have the Democratic National Convention on in the background. It seems good that Kamala Harris got the nomination and there are only 72 days left until the election. The excitement of a younger, energetic presidential candidate can be sustained that long without breaking pace. I plan to do two or three things daily related to the campaign. Before we know it, election day will be here.

In the meanwhile, there is kitchen and garden work to do today. Not before I take a long walk on the state park trail and consider the wonder that is August.

Categories
Writing

Closing the Door

Working the Garden

On Friday I put the cost of printing 25 copies of my memoir on my credit card and uploaded my manuscript and photo. My team contact said it will take about eight days to get the copyright and printing will follow soon thereafter. The cost included copyright, International Standard Book Number and Library of Congress registration. Things moved very quickly from the time I contacted Prime Publishing online. I was ready.

I know one other author who used Prime to make his books and he was very satisfied. In my case, I am publishing privately with no plan for commercial sales. The cost is much less than taking it to a local print shop.

So that’s that.

I need to organize my files for storage. After Labor Day, I pick up work on the second volume. I had 65,000 words written when I left part two to finish part one. It needs a better outline and eventually a re-write. Publishing the first volume is a turning point. I’m closing the door on that part of my life. It already feels different.