The View from Elsewhere

books as stuff

Here we are, back on the balcony, the dinner invitation having fallen through...

Margaret, in a comment on not-the-real blog asks:

I wish the ABC had sent me a box of 50 books, although a handy house extension to fit them in would be more useful. I await that post with interest, as the book situation here is out of control - how can I throw them out, when a piece of my soul resides in each? 

Have you noticed how houses in real estate ads have no books, and if you go to an open house all the books are gone?

 Hmm, well, nicely put but I don't know that a piece of my soul resides in each of the 50 books sent by the ABC (yet), tho beggars can't be chosers.

I plan to write some time on stuffology, but for now, I will just concentrate on the sub-category of books, a sub-category that does not plague all stuffeurs but is plaguesome nevertheless.

In my time as a blogger, I have been party to some conversations about the ways in which bloggers organise their books.  (Of course, bloggers have books in the way that they have cats.)  I began by organising mine by colour (mmm, a lot of orange, thanks to Penguin) and height; I graduated to alphabetical ordering after visiting the abode of Whitebait and Dr Dr Fraulein.  I'm backtracking to this, because there is some merit in the idea of books as decorative, tho there also seems to be a tipping point where they simply turn into clutter.

N.B. the answer that Margaret gives to her second question in a later comment:

Nah, real estate agents tell people to get the books out because they look like clutter. 

Sobering, eh?  In fact, they probably are clutter.  I had to come to terms with this when I left teaching, and was no longer in possession of an Academic Book Case in an Academic Office (well, it was kind of a mud-brick academic institution, but we did at least get a book case and an office with a door that locked for our troubles).  This necessitated buying two new small bookcases (one of which I assembled wrongly; smaller so I could still see the canvas hitherto hanging on the wall) and then fashioning a makeshift student-like bookcase from two planks and some bricks to shelve the burgeoning collection of CNF books in my bedroom.  In fact, there are bookcases in every room, except the laundry, and now another 50 books from the ABC to house.

I don't know where I'm going with this, because I have no real answer to The Problem of Books (a bit like The Problem of Pain or The Problem of Evil -- not!)  Part of the problem is that many of the books I own I've only read once, and I'm never sure whether I'll read them ever again, so why am I holding onto them? A hippyish/new-ager person (i.e. an older Gen-Xer like me caught in a bandwidth difficult to categorise) (or so I like to believe) once rudely drew my attention to how unecological old books were -- how much space, paper, etc, they took up, and encouraged me to give up clinging to them sentimentally.  After all, there are:

• Books one could never part with because they're deeply equated with some supposedly meaningful moment in one's life, even if it was Long Ago and Entirely Stupid. (e.g. Mates at Billabong)
• Books one could never part with because they're deeply equated with some supposedly meaningful moment in one's life and probably are of Eternal Cultural Significance (e.g. A Passage to India)
• Books that don't interest you much that you hold onto because they might be good syllabus material if ever you get a teaching job again (e.g. The Kadaitcha Sung)
• Books that someone who's now dead gave you that you would feel shitty about dumping (e.g. A Praise Anthology of Short Stories; A Junior Science Encyclopedia)
• Books from a long-lost moment in theoretical thought that no longer interests you and never really did (e.g. An Apprenticeship in Liberty; even An Introduction to Jacques Lacan)
• Books of obscure poetry that someone thought you might like (e.g. The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood)

In terms of note buying any more books, there is one possible answer, acc to Amazon, and that is a Kindle.  I was optimistic about this solution for a while, especially since I live in a remote area and am used to internet ordering, but now I'm skeptical.  I read a New Yorker article the other day that fulfilled my worst fears: (a) Kindle 2's screen is hard to read; (b) Not All the Books in the World are available on Kindle -- not by a long shot yet.

Another solution is: stop buying books and use the local library.  There are even books in Alice Springs library I've never read.

And of course (c): read the shipment of ABC books over the next year.

In relation to t'uther painful matter: culling (let's be up front).  Up until now, most of this concerned concealing the books one felt were too Daggy for Public Display, except for a Painful Moment during the Dissolution of the Budgewoi Holiday House, in which one was asked to bin all the books (yes, in a giant wheelie bin) that one did not think they could take back to Melbourne in their Macpack.  Ah yes; mother is a pragmatist.

So where were we?  Perhaps some kind of mathematical equation is in order to deal with the question of the Culling of Books, like:

If O = Obscurity, D = Design, S = Sentimentality, U = Potential Use Factor, X = Inescapable, Unquantifiable Soul Factor, De = Decay, A = Antique but not something useless from Ridiculous Past Theoretical Paradigms, and C = Cullability then:

C = O + [ D X S - {U + tanX x De}/A]

That's as far as I've got in this two-bedroom townhouse. 

forty and non-fabulous

So...time has passed and I need to keep up some semblance of blogging.  The other day I was in Booktown, Alice Springs, that literary metropolis, idling fifteen minutes away. I'd been sent there (well, not quite) by the jeweller, who was trying to work out what was happening with my watch.  The supposedly imperturbable Swatch was having some kind of neurotic hissy fit or maybe even PTSD from being taken mountainbiking in central Australia, stopping and starting regardless of whether it had a new battery.

An idle moment in a bookshop is a great one in which to read self-help books you wouldn't otherwise countenance, like browsing through Who Weeklies from 1990 in doctors' surgeries.  I have to say, with these publications I feel initially intrigued (like, there might be something in this, after all) then increasingly soiled.

As you can see, this is all just building up into an excuse.  I started flicking through a book with a title like 'How to be fabulous after forty', the subtext of which was you might think you're pretty good for 40, your friends might tell you you are, but you're not, so listen up.

I gleaned all sorts of pearls of wisdom from between its cover, like: 

• Within every relationship, there is a lover and a beloved.  True, in my house, there's one lover and three feline beloveds.
• Occasionally, an Extra-Special Person in her mid-40s gets married to the Envy of All Her Friends.  Like the author of this book.  Hmm, and my long-suffering and probably much more deserving friend Anna.  
• Men do notice what women wear. And they don't like city shorts.

Okay...wtf are city shorts, as opposed to country shorts or suburban shorts or stubbies? (Tailored, I'm guessing.)

Original readers of this blog will know that shorts-wearing is a sore point for me, after a dinner party that I attended in 2004 where shorts-wearing for women over the age of 30 was hotly debated.  (Doesn't look like it's an issue that's going away in a hurry -- Ed.)  I mean, I demand the right to show my varicose veins to the world'n'all that.  It doesn't seem to be a big issue for Aboriginal women in central Australia, either -- plenty of shorts-wearing there.

But otherwise, I'm surprised by how much of this fabulous and forty caper seems to be all about clothes, and indeed, many of the fashion accoutrements I hold near and dear to my heart were castigated by this book: shorts, chin-length bobs, leather jackets, leggings (what is more useful than a pair of knee-length leggings, I ask, for cycling and getting additional seasonal mileage out of a frock/skirt?)

I find this advice kind of depressing.  On the other hand, I fear that if I don't take it, I'm going to turn into my mother: an inappropriate, shorts-wearing eccentric at the age of 79.  On yet another hand, the book was written by a Pom and I tend to think Poms (even the women) are a bit frumpy...even (or especially) after Trinny and Susannah have descended on them and given them one of those make-overs involving cross-over floral tops.  And T & S have a lot to answer for:  they've heightened my knee consciousness, which means I keep on looking at my knees to see if they've dropped (hard to do from above) and whether they should be exposed.

So this middle age -- it's not a lot of fun.  It seems to be all about prohibitions, a time when you do things with impunity -- or maybe without impunity in fear of a time when you might not be able to do so.  I'm thinking it only gets worse.  Perhaps the 40s are about cosmetic loss and the 50s will be about more serious bodily  loss -- eek!  And if this is 40, what will 80 be like?  Or, more accurately, 88?

On another note: yesterday, I received a summons to TNT's terminal.  Two large boxes were waiting for me.  I said to the girl there (yes, I'm getting old enough to say 'girl'; people call me 'ma'am'): 'D'you mind if I open them here in case they explode?'

When I did, I realised it was the consignment of fifty books promised to me after writing three sentences on an ABC website.  There's some irony in being a competition winner of books, as I've just been having a prolonged mental debate with myself about whether I needed another bookcase and the principles for culling books -- when to turf and not to turf, etc. (The subject for yet another post.) So now I have 50 more books to sift through: at least I won't have to buy any for another year.  And what I am doing: reading the one of the pop-psychobabelish books That I Would Never Buy first: When My Bum Dropped (at the age of 45).

Yes, well, it seems that Middle Age is All About Things Dropping (yet another mindless aphorism).

Otherwise, I'm here drinking my no doubt breast-cancer causing 2 G & Ts or sauv-blancs-with-ice-cubes (yeah, hideous habit) on the balcony every evening.

And do I miss America?  Sigh, yes.  But America'll keep, unless they blow themselves up.  And I always have my HBO box sets to remind myself of American culture at its best.

(And I got a replacement Swatch, which was much nicer than the irreplaceable original.)

Festival of Albert

 

Here are some pics from the festival held at  Ntaria this weekend to mark the 50th anniversary of Albert Namatjira's death.  Buildings from the mission where Namatjira grew up are visible in the background.

Unfortunately I don't have any photos of the three-year-old dancing queen, who treated us to an Abba revival in the back seat of the 4WD on the way out.

not another hiatus

It seems that almost every time I come to blog these days, I'm on the verge of announcing that there has been or is some kind of blogging hiatus.  Part of the problem for me is a feeling I'm running out of things to blog about and consequently repeating myself. Another is spending so much time at the laptop already, and that I should give my best hours to Serious Writing.

I do still read other blogs most days, and get something out of them, even if I don't comment (like being prompted to re-read Joan Didion's essay on self-respect by Ariel). I do wonder if I would have stayed in contact with civilisation so well without the blogosphere (tho here I am perhaps amongst cyber-barbarians). Another thing about the blogosphere is that I ended up networking with people in ways I would never have expected.  But the gloss does seem to have gone off the whole thing; not just for me, I suspect.  There doesn't seem to be the buzz there was about the blogosphere back in 2005-06.

Recently, I've had a paper-and-pen revival. I heard at a workshop earlier this year that writing in a journal for 15 minutes a day has been proven to have therapeutic benefits.  I wondered whether pen and paper might have advantages over blogging: some of the therapeutic benefits might extend to one's neck. Apart from the fact that you can be more private, I also thought committing things to paper might work something like my middle of the night post-it philosophy: when I was teaching, I used to wake up worrying about my students.  I found that if I kept a post-it pad beside my bed and wrote down a list of things to do (compiled from my worries), that tended to short-circuit the process.

So I decided to spend just 15 minutes journalling a day in one of the many notebooks I have lying around the house.  I have a notebook fetish in the way that some people have a thing about nice pens. I buy them because I like the look of them, write on about three pages, then promptly forget about them.  I suspect that one of the reasons I've been so bad about journalling in the past is that secretly, I like an audience, which is why letter-writing, blogging and facebooking seem preferable.  I'm not sure how long I'll keep the paper-journalling up.  It's been interesting: I usually just write whatever comes into my head in that stream-of-consciousness, emptying-out-the-trash way. I don't know about therapeutic...yet.  I notice certain themes returning (oh, am I really beating myself up about that again?).  I wonder if I'll get bored of them, and try and resolve them or move on as a result.  

Otherwise...otherwise...I'm not sure how much progress I'm making, but writing's like that. The post-Colony glow lasted about a month.  I've kept to myself a lot to try and maintain that sense of focus and calm-ness that I gained at the Colony, but it's hard...one has to work, too. I had a conversation with Mr Tiley recently, and he suggested that I take a leaf out of Cormac McCarthy's book and do the mad writer thing: barricade myself in a caravan with a shotgun to ward off intruders and blurt Alice Springs out onto the page...er, keyboard.  It's an idea that has some appeal, and I suspect I do have a book's worth to blurt now, but I also suspect that McCarthy might be well-enough financed to become a total isolate in a caravan.

So, yeah, as introspective as ever.  Rest assured that I'm still sitting in the top storey of my unit with its view of the MacDonnell ranges surrounded by neurotic cats, tapping away.  Except that I'm off to the Olive Pink Botanic Gardens to do some Serious Thinking about the Script: nothing like a change of location.

photos

I have uploaded some photos from my American trip in albums at flickr, if you're interested in seeing some countryside like and not like central Australia: http://www.flickr.com/photos/elsewhere07/.

There's rather a lot of them and many are still unlabelled: I'm not that good at culling (shades of whatever it was Oscar Wilde said about it being easier to write something long rather than short).

In other news: I am writing research papers about alcohol restrictions; doing research for my 'book' about Alice; about to start work with a script editor on the centralian lesbian re-make of Brideshead; and writing a short piece about Salt Lake City. So, my life is full with grog, Aboriginal people, lesbians and Mormons (and the new typepad is driving me crazy).  As I said to a friend yesterday, you have to wonder when the tipping point comes in your time in central Australia; when you really just do become too irrelevant and obscure (even by my standards).

This cat which is not one (but in fact a human)

Upon ascertaining Lulu’s FC quotient, not to mention her dangerous, non-heart-healthy waist measurement (49 cm), I checked her in at the Alice Springs Feline Social and Emotional Wellbeing Centre (ASFSEWC) for assessment.

These were the findings of an interview with Dr Felix le Chat on 12 Sept 09:

The patient presented with signs of a histrionic personality disorder -- leaping up onto furniture, knocking over framed family photos, tearing up journal articles, yowling in an a-tonal key, etc.  She was not amenable to group therapy, finding it impossible to give over the meow stick in any collective context, always feeling the compulsion to ‘tell her story’, as it were, at the expense of others.

Once I had established rapport with Lulu, empathising through reflective purr strategies, validating her basic need to be fed and emphasising the resilience she had shown to date by being a total pain in the arse, I was able to determine details of her early kittenhood experience and to establish a patient profile.

The patient was suffering from insecure anxious attachment (see Feed—Bowlby 2007:35), after being abandoned in the Diarama Village Car Park by Heartless American Espionage Agents who had been working 20,000 leagues beneath the earth’s crust at Pine G*p Military base.  They had left Alice Springs after discovering there were ‘too many bugs’ in their unit and being challenged by Ecological Earth Warriors to lower their energy consumption. 

Lulu learnt at an early age that behaviours such as throwing herself belly-up on the pavement outside the Diarama Village Gym in front of sports jocks led to pats and sometimes even snacks.  Her inner kitten had not been fed, leading not only to attention-seeking behaviour in the hope of being fed, but histrionic and obsessive behaviour even when the supply of food was not in doubt.  Later, despite being fostered out into a secure and loving feline family environment, Lulu continued to eat compulsively and to commandeer the feedbowls of herself and (O)thers.  This confirmed my suspicions that beneath Lulu’s large, multicoloured exterior and rambunctious attention-getting strategies was a frightened kitten who longed to be psychologically nourished. 

In our last session, I tried to encourage Lulu to try and make meaning of her some of her traumatic early kittenhood experiences with Litter Box Play Therapy, but she merely coughed up a furball on the carpet.

I decided to take a confrontational approach with Lulu, challenging her about the seriousness of her therapeutic engagement, suggesting that her apparent flippancy was in fact a projection onto the analyst of her deepest insecurities and anxieties about being fed.  There was no need for to play the tough, yet entertaining street cat.  Therapy was a safe place in which she could let down her guard, and metaphorically speaking, let kitty litter spray outside the box.

In turn, Lulu questioned the nature of the psychoanalytic encounter, suggesting that le petit objet a had rolled under the couch then chasing after it.

This was in keeping my assessment of her as a personality that felt abandoned and thus the need to abandon other(s) space. 

Etc.

In other news…New York, the Grand Canyon, the Cat’s Meow cabaret at the Alice Springs Desert Festival…what more can I say?

 

<Feline happy with her owner’s assumption of the consultant’s lifestyle (i.e. working from home)>

Fat is a feline issue

On my return home, I found that Lulu had blown out to a whopping 6+ kg, now resembling the proportions of a small wombat.  This is in no way a reflection on various cat-minders but rather on that of the feline herself and her beg, borrow or steal mentality when it comes to food.

Feline Energy Exchange Converter 

If: 

ec = energy consumed 

ee = energy expended 

Then:

Fat cat quotient =             ec 

ee

<this home consultancy gig ain't so bad>

A week in the life of Lulu

Units of energy consumed:

Own food:                                                                                           7 x 200 = 1400

Jessie and Otty’s food:                                                                         7 x 400 = 2800

Sundry other cats’ food round neighbourhood:                          7 x10,000 = 70,000

                                                                                                                         74,200

 

Units of energy expended:

 

Sleeping                                                                         7 X 23.5 X – 200 = - 32,900

Running around neighbourhood to eat other cats’ food            7 X 2 X 350 = 4,900

Running around house to eat other cats’ food                                      7 X 2 X 20 = 280

Running upstairs to be fed                                                                        7 X 2 X 10 = 140

Banging feedbowl in hope of being fed                                                            7 X 2X 10 = 140

Tearing up paper in hope of being fed                                                 7 X 2 X 7.5 = 105

Fitfully tapping toy that interested one three years ago but now no more                            5

                                                                                                                        — 27,225

 

Lulu (FC) =                          74,200                          = — 2.725*

—27,225

 

* Totally meaningless total

farewell to the States

And so it's farewell to the Island...

the Canyon...

and other delights.

down and out in Temple Square

The weekend in SLC looked like it was also shaping up to be a fairly quiet and sedate affair.  There was a steady dribble of tourists into Temple Square.  I did experience some moments of trepidation when I realised what I was in for: cheery approaches from pairs of early-20-something-women with flat-ironed big hair (it’s possible), clad in long skirts and Mary Janes, offering tours as a pretext for evangelism.  At least evangelism is free.  I have to say, I expected to be more overwhelmed by Temple Square than I was, for the temples and tabernacle to be more flashy and ostentatious than they were.  It all seemed…kind of Baptist with add-ons, like the religion itself.  I didn’t think it held up that well against some of the great Cathedrals of Europe, tho I was told that the Temple was mentioned in Isaiah(?), as a place to which people from all over the world would come: suspect this was really a reference to Jerusalem rather than Salt Lake (the Old Testament being written by Jews, after all), but arguing the toss with Mormon tour guides didn’t seem like a good idea.

I was impressed, however, by the history: people traipsing across the continent to flee religious persecution from other Puritan pioneers, then building a temple by hand over the next 40 years.  Tourists (and the Mormon under-12s, apparently) aren’t allowed inside the main temple, where weddings and some of the baptising on behalf of others happen.  At one point, I somehow mistakenly got into the garden outside the main temple with a lot of wedding guests, whom I realised after a while weren’t part of a tour.  There were a few glares.

down and out in SLC

And so, into Salt Lake City, which wasn’t as a difficult a drive as I expected.  People at the Colony told me that it was ‘just like entering any American city’: the maze of highways, bypasses, etc, and the peak hour traffic were relatively easy to negotiate. The city has a beautiful setting – chocolate box-lid-style mountains in the background.

What surprised me was how quiet and emptied out the city was on a Friday night.  I booked at a hotel opposite Temple Square: it much cheaper to stay in the heart of town than I expected, but perhaps this was because there didn’t seem to be a whole lot happening (unless you include the Ancestor Seekers convention taking place at my hotel).  If there’s an Australian city SLC reminds me of, it’s probably Perth -- lots of office buildings with large glass windows and quiet, wide streets. The overlap between the central grid and suburbia is rapid: there seemed to be Californian bungalows almost in the CBD. 

I went off to meet with C, a friend of R, with whom I studied at Gopher.  Both of these guys hail from a tiny town with a population of 1,000 in central Utah and are to some degree, as I understand things, lapsed, liberal or ex-Mormons.  Some of my friends expressed scepticism about the prospect of ex or enlightened Mormons – ‘once a Mormon, always a Mormon’, one said -- but I say, keep an open mind and when in Rome, meet with the Romans. 

moseying in Moab

I spent my second last day in Utah moseying round Arches, the national park just outside Moab, a kind of outdoors sports-oriented tourism hub reminiscent of Alice, Queenstown, NZ, other such places.  Plenty of mountainbikers and other cyclists along the roadsides.  I had hopes of getting down to the SE corner of the state to see Monument Valley or the Needles, but unfortunately, both of these destinations seemed far too ambitious for the amount of time I was there.  I could have done with 10 rather than 5 days in Nth Arizona / Utah.

toy canyon

On Thursday I went down to Bryce Canyon in the morning and walked from Sunrise to Sunset points.  After the Grand Canyon, Bryce was like a toy canyon, tho when you got up close and personal to some of its 'hoodoos' (stalacmites), they were pretty massive.  Some views of Bryce reminded me of Italian towns.

I drove further inland over the Giant Staircase, a series of yellowish folds sometimes dotted with trees, the landscape that reminded me most of central Australia.  And thence on to Moab, listening to Nick Cave (for those who are interested).  The variation in rock forrmations in such a relatively small area has to be a geologist's wetdream.  After a while, even I almost tired of jumping out of the car to take yet another photo.

red rocks

After a farewell trip to the Canyon’s rim and many stops at Indians’ handicraft stalls along the road, I began the next leg of my trip on Wednesday in earnest, heading along what I suspect is the lesser used ‘Alt 89’ route towards Fredonia.  The landscape once again reminded me in parts of central Australia (or thereabouts).  There were giant white-pinkish mounds along the highway just after the Canyon turn-off, which reminded me of the slag heaps at Cooper Pedy, except you could see from their geological striations that they were natural.  Along the Alt 89 were towering red-brown cliffs (the Vermillion cliffs): again, somehow like but not like the ridges of the MacDonnell ranges.  When I got to Utah itself, there were giant orange rock formations dotted with green trees and shrubs – perhaps the landscape most like that around Alice Springs that I’d seen, but again, somehow distinctively different.  There were also a lot of small settlements of trailers and box-like houses along the road, which I presume belonged to Indians.  Again, very similar to driving in central Australia, perhaps more so than the Maori northlands of NZ. 

A funny thing about map-buying in Nth Arizona: it was nigh impossible to buy a map of Utah there. .  I wanted a map because otherwise I was wholly reliant on the Lonely Planet guide’s thumbnail sketch of highways , tho I shouldn’t have worried too much, as the way to Bryce Canyon (my next stop) was well=enough signed. I tried to purchase one several times at various servos and information centres, only to be referred to a gas station elsewhere or the ‘Four Corners’ map (i.e. four corners of different states), which I already had.  I eventually said to one of these kind people, ‘Right, so I have to go to Utah to buy a map of Utah.’  I began to over-read all sorts of things about the American psyche into this: perhaps they didn’t stock maps of what seemed to be nearby States because of their greater sense of distance or maybe they didn’t venture very far out of their own home territory.  Or perhaps it’s the myopia of the local tourist industry, designed to keep you in the Grand Canyon area.  Anyway, over-reading and all that.  When I finally made it over the border into Kanab, I thought, at last, I’m in a place where I can buy a map of Utah.  And lo, so it was to be.

I had a sense of mounting excitement driving towards Utah.  Giant vistas opened up in the distance, lined with ridges of white and red-brown and celestial fingers of light beaming down from on high.  I could well understand how it would appeal to anyone with a vaguely Old Testament sensibility and how it might be susceptible to unconscious parody in kitsch religious art.  I also saw a ‘Fellowship tent’ alongside the road in Arizona.  I didn’t know they still existed, but perhaps the tent and tabernacle revivals still go on.

 

up close and personal with the Canyon

Yesterday morning I had plans to do something sensible like go to the Visitors Centre and work out a reasonable plan of what to do in one day in the Park.  Instead, I got thrown off course, due to the enigmatic signage they have here (you really need a map) and my inability to read it.  I ended back at the Bright Angel and decided on impulse to do the walk there into the Canyon, because I saw a sign saying ‘Blue Angel trailhead’.

On impulse is perhaps not the best way to head into the Canyon, especially since the only provisions I had with me were fairly inadequate – a bagel and two mango spears, plus two bottles of water, thankfully.  The Blue Angel descent is subtly steep – long zigzagging paths winding down. In some ways, I was reminded of walks down into the valley floor in the Blue Mountain, which are probably steeper and more dramatic, with the same promontory of rocks overhead as you look back, but no doubt shorter.  The paths in the Canyon are wider, and dotted with mule dirt, tame squirrels in search of a feed and clumps of heaving tourists.  (Yes, people really do descend into the Canyon on muleback, a la the Brady Bunch double episode.) It was reminiscent of some kind of pilgrimage, with older folks clambering up and down the track, leaning on staves. 

After twenty minutes or so (as one of the gayboys at the Colony told me), the crowd thins, and mainly the young and the intrepid make it down to the huts at the 1.5 and the 3 mile points.  There were all sorts of dolorous warnings along the way about not trying to make it down to the river and back in one day, plus pictures of the iconic handsome young male adventurer saying, ‘We rescue 250 tourists in the Canyon every year and most of them look like him.’  (I presume this means the young and the brave are at peril, rather than the good-looking).  The hiker was also advised to set aside twice as much time for the ascent as the descent…I wondered about this, as I find walking downhill far more taxing on the legs than going uphill.

back on the road

I arrived at Flagstaff airport in north Arizona, full of doom at the prospect of driving on the wrong side of the car on the ‘right’ side of the road.  I had put off such a predicament for as long as possible (five trips to America), but could avoid it no longer, now that I felt the need to make a last mad dash around the national parks of Arizona and Utah before leaving the States.  Would the rentals people show any sign of knowing that I was some kind of liability who shouldn’t be allowed to drive one of their cars?

They showed no such sign and gave me a Toyota Camry, which seemed like some kind of omen, given that it was my parents’ favoured make of car until they converted to Subaru AWDs.  The thing was, once I jumped in the car, the switch seemed immediate: it did seem like the right side of the road to be driving on.  Admittedly, I did take about an hour to get out of Flagstaff, a small but surprisingly glammed up regional town (compared to Alice) onto the highway route I wanted.  But then suddenly, there I was, driving through low flat plains edged with brooding mountain ridges.  Indian country.  I know that’s not strictly P.C. (tho they often call themselves Indians), but that was what immediately came to mind.  A sense of still and watchfulness in the landscape, of presence, of being somewhere else I hadn’t quite been before in America.  A car swerved ahead of me and I saw the familiar sight of a beaten up old Toyota with a brown arm flailing out the window.  When I overtook the car later, I saw almost certainly that native Americans were on board.  Along the highway there were various turn-offs to reservations and other properties – again, very familiar, very reminiscent of central Australia.  It was where I wanted to be – back on the open road, in the desert.

last days in the colony

Now I'm in Phoenix, waiting for a connecting flight, sitting rather uncomfortably against a pylon, sipping a Starbucks coffee...which is usually a sign that I'm trapped in an airport as I don't drink Starbucks otherwise.  Phoenix seems to be edged by some lunar crater-like mountains. I'm en route to the Grand Canyon, which I plan to drive to once I reach Flagstaff...some trepidation here, as I've never driven on the 'right' side of the road before, but at least I won't be starting out from a big city.  I'll be spending a couple of days on the southern rim of the Canyon then visiting some national parks before heading up to Salt Lake City before leaving the States.  Apart from always having wanted to visit these places, the idea is to see something more natural apart from cities in the States because who knows when I'll be here again.

What to say about my last days in the colony?  After the first week or so, in which I did a splendid imitation of Janet Frame (being stricken with self-consciousness and social anxiety in the face of arty Brooklynites), I gradually settled into life in the colony.  The days all blurred into one, marked only it seemed by oscillations in the weather (reminiscent of Melbourne), apart from the day on which Corin and I climbed Mt Monadnock.  After a couple of weeks, it was as if I'd adopted being in the colony like a lifestyle.  The only reminder of its limits was the constant life-death cycle with which we lived. People kept on disappearing like characters in a mini-series or perhaps a murder mystery...one with serial murders (not naming the Agatha Christie novel with racist title).  It was like: 'who'll be next?'  It was unbelievable that certain personalities would disappear, given they seemed so much a part of colony life. They would then be replaced by new faces at dinner who, with the fullness of time, would become colony characters in their own right.

What did I gain from being at the colony? I'm really not sure what shape my MS is in, after the experience.  It will be interesting to print it all out when I return home and see how it reads. My process was a bit like cracking open the segments of a crab and leaving them scattered in pieces:  I'm hoping there'll be more rather than less of it left. I'm still undecided about the whole issue of whether one is more productive working in a relaxed rather than a pressured state.  I often have been highly productive under pressure, but I do think there's greater depth of vision to be gained working while relaxed.

More than anything else, I gained a sense of affirmation about what I was doing -- both the project and the trying to be a writer bit.  I was surprised by how interested and how complimentary people (even est'd writers) were re: my project when I gave a presentation on it one night: who knows?  Perhaps there is an American market out there for my book.   It was also refreshing to be in a place where for a change creative activity was not pathologised, not seen as a sign of 'lack', and it was okay just to create.  You have to hand it to Americans at this point, for their enthusiasm and optimism about creative endeavours, and for having the vision and the philanthropic good will to build and invest in artists colonies.

Another benefit of life in the colony was being amongst people from neighbouring disciplines (e.g. playwrights) with similar, but not entirely the same, processes, and people from totally different disciplines (e.g.composers, etc) and hearing about the quite different ways in which they worked.  For example, when I said I thought reading 1-2 hours a day was fundamental to the writing processes, some composers would tell me that they wouldn't listen to any other music while composing, in case it distracted or threw them totally.  One interesting thing I noticed (and quizzed people about) in the colony was the issue of children: some of the men present had several kids, but in all the time I was there, I only met one woman with a child.  It confirmed my suspicions that being a mother and an artist -- and one who goes on long-term residencies -- is a pretty difficult gig.

Would I do it again?  Yes, indeed, and yes, at the very same colony if I had a chance, especially to do the last lap on a specifc project.  I'd also ask for even longer period (5-6 weeks),. 

I'm feeling very tired right now (especially since I've been up since 6.30 am and have gained three hours, 90 mins of which will be spent driving to the Grand Canyon -- but how exciting to end the day with a view of the GC!  Something I never thought I'd see, not in all my wildest imaginings, not even after watching the Brady Bunch go to the Grand Canyon double episode.

Now it's sunny here

Now that it’s sunny here after several overcast days last week, I’m finding that I’m hitting my writing stride or perhaps it really did take two weeks to settle in here.  It is very pleasant to breathe in the New Hampshire warmth and smells (of wildflowers and other greenery, in case you’re wondering).  I also find any number of sun-filled nooks on my verandah in which to spread out and write.  The Americans seem to think it’s hot (90 F): I’d call it warm or a mild summer’s day.  (I’m likewise amused when they call the area ‘remote’.) 

The fact that my writing goes better on a sunny day has rather dampened my idea that I might get a huge amount of writing done if I went on sabbatical to Melbourne: that cosy, grey literary environment.  Perhaps after almost a decade in Sydney and Alice, my brain has become accustomed to a certain degree of bright light.  Perhaps I should escape to a tropical island instead.

I feel a little more used to the rhythm of the colony, tho the intermittently changing scene of people, the enforced dinner time familiarity, is slightly disconcerting, like any other expat community.  I have also become less wedded to the idea of my productiveness being measurable in some kind of substantial form, like pages written, chapters completed.

‘If you come here with that idea,’ says one of the older, more established writers, ‘you’ve come with the wrong approach.’

Rather, the spaciousness the place makes possible enables you to have some change or clarity of vision: you might find a new narrative arc, etc.  It’s worth coming here just to find that.

The older colonist also ruminates on why he does it: why he submits himself to the pressure of writing?

It’s always that question with writing, and the arts more generally:  why would you do it?  Why would you submit yourself to the pressure of work –- frequently arduous work -- which is generally not well-supported and not well recognised, especially in Australia with its tall poppy syndrome and distrust of anyone who attempts to do anything out of the ordinary?

The colonist couldn’t … or wouldn’t … have said that he needed to write when he set out as a writer, but the years he has spent writing now suggests that he does somehow need to write.

I don’t want to go down that burrow about whether writing is an inherently pathological activity, that speaks about a lack within oneself, or an inherently creative, playful urge (less convinced of the second option)…been there before in this blog.

But when the colonist said this, I suddenly realised, in a way I hadn’t before: Writing…this is the rest of my life…there’ll be another forty years of this (or even more, if I follow in my grandmothers’ footsteps).  Now that I’ve taken the plunge and made some kind of commitment to the writing life, it’s taken hold of me.  I can’t see myself letting go of the idea.  I might take a full-time job to pay some of my bills more easily at times, but I cant see myself giving up now or ever.

 

thinking, not writing (much)

So, time is passing, perhaps more quickly than I would have expected.  I'm rapidly approaching the halfway mark, wondering if I will get up some head of steam.  I imagined I would be writing doggedly every moment, but a kind of lethargy spreads over one here...something to do with having so much time to relax, maybe.  This experience is widespread: a frequent meal-time topics is, how many naps have you had today?  I feel somewhat as though I've returned to the same state I was in during my banana lounge period (aka 5 weeks' unemployment last year): sleeping in, reading for another hour or so, before finally confronting the possibility of work.  The evening meal is around 6.15 pm, so that rather abbreviates the day for me (being more used to eating around 7.30 pm).  

I've had a debate within myself as to whether pressure and deadline fever actually makes me a more productive writer.  On the other hand, the whole spaciousness of time has maybe given way to greater breadth of vision.  I have conceptualised a new series of chapter, often by expanding out or breaking up existing chapters.  I don't know that my new vision will work, but it's looking more substantial. Now, just to do some more work on these chapters, so I don't return home and think: where did all that time go?

Working on non-fiction (even in its creative form) can have a sense of hard labour about it: I'm mindful, particularly because of my academic background, to make sure all my information can be verified, has some factual source, etc.  In this respect, I miss fiction and the sense of lightness and play: the ability to speculate and say, but what if this happened?  (rather than, better make sure you're not misquoting there).  I'm thinking of beginning with an hour of fiction-writing for the next two weeks.  Right now, I'm finding it hard to tear myself away from reading Alice Munro every morning (a few of her collections are in the library), so perhaps I need to do some more creative writing of my own.

into the woods

I’m in a large cabin in a New Hampshire forest, greenery all around, sheep and turkeys on a nearby lawn.  The cabin is called a studio and indeed it is like a studio apartment, with a large desk, a rocking chair and a bed off to one side in an alcove.  There’s also a small bathroom, kitchenette and a closed in verandah where I envisage reading on a hot summer’s day. In the entry to the cabin is a series of wooden tablets on racks, with the names of the artists who have stayed in the colony, going back to its earliest days.  The first three are dark with age, impossible to read.  I discovered, to my delight, that my old writing teacher, the late Glenda Adams, had stayed in the very same cabin, twenty-two years ago to the month.  This was a very pleasing omen: I felt almost as tho I was being looked over by my guardian angel.  If there’s someone I see as pivotal in encouraging me to take writing fork in the road, it’s Glenda.

I’m surprised at how spread out the colony is – a series of cabins scattered through a pine forest, the furthest being some thirty minutes walk away.  It’s possible to feel as though one is working in almost total seclusion, like an Irish monk in a bee hive cell.  Lunch is brought to you in a wooden basket, which you have to return by dinner.  You can also borrow a bike during your time here: happily, I’ve found an old Gary Fisher hybrid with mountainbike tyres.  I’m hoping to test its limits in the forest.

I feel somewhat overwhelmed by the talent here, and have that feeling of being the ring-in yokel once again: there are plenty of mentions of Guggenheims and so forth throughout the residents’ cv’s, and half the people here seem to live in Brooklyn.  Everyone very serious about their work, disappearing promptly after breakfast.  There are a few emerging artists, however, including people in their twenties, so I shouldn’t beat myself up too much.

The woman who took me round the colony said that many artists feel compelled to work the minute they get here; others feel the need to decompress.  The latter is what I experienced in Tasmania.  I’m wondering if I’ll feel the same here.  My plan was to begin by reading for the first day, specifically re-reading Vivian Gornick’s The Story and the Situation and then my my MS and associated oddments.  Instead, I fell asleep.  I’m a bit daunted at the thought of revisiting my MFA MS at the moment, which I haven’t touched for about three months (not a bad thing).  I have been pootling about with script things, but I do plan to read today.  Interestingly, Gornick notes that after teaching on MFA programs for 15 years, she came to the conclusion that you couldn’t teach people to write, but you could teach them how to read.

 

travel diary

31 July – unimaginably the last day in July…unimaginable because it seems the year has passed so quickly.  I’m on the train from NY Penn to Baltimore Penn – goodness knows why so many of these American train stations end in ‘Penn’.  It’s raining; the scenery through the window is green and misty.  I don’t associate New York with rain, but already since my arrival, there have been hot, angry showers. Not specifically jetlagged, but rather generally vague and tired.  It’s very humid; impossible not to feel a little rancid if you’re a traveller, with all the sweat-inducing lugging of bags.  I don’t mind this three hour run along the backyards of the north east States.  I’m going down to Baltimore to graduate; I rather regret not having more time in New York tho I’ve been there several times.

I had breakfast with Michelle, a kind of outposted Melbourne Uni postgrad.  She commented that she'd never been to Darwin; I said there's not a whole lot there to see, tho it is close to Asia.  She said, close as in the Australian idea of close, like seven hours away?

Later -- arrived at Goucher in Baltimore somewhat belatedly at 7.30 pm, in time nevertheless to give a no doubt somewhat inscrutable reading from my MFA about AFL in central Australia.  Americans seem kindly interested.  Great to see so many of my former comrades, tho sad also because it may well be the last time unless I go to an alumni event.  I wish I'd arrived earlier, to spend more time with them and to imbibe some of the teaching.  I'm reminded that it is a unique community with a very specialised focus on literary nonfiction.  I said something like this to one of my old mentors and she said, yes, now you're on your own.

Now -- drinking almost undrinkable coffee at Baltimore airport at 5.00 am, waiting for the first of my flights northwards to New Hampshire for the artists’ colony residency.  It doesn’t seem real, tho I’ve waited so long for this month to come round when I can just focus on my writing and nothing else.  I’m a bit daunted by the prospect in some ways.  I don’t think I’ve had such a period of time without other distractions since I was on a postgrad scholarship.  Will I get as much done as I think I will?  Or will I find that I haven’t bought enough material with me to work on?  Or will I have some amazing breakthrough or period of being in the zone that will help me re-jig the first half of my manuscript entirely?  I’m hoping to re-work the structure and the overall narratorial strategy or presence or whatever you want to call it. I feel grossly unprepared in some ways. I always feel the compulsion to do more research before I write anything substantial, unless it's fiction.  But maybe I know more than I realise. I spoke to the last of my mentors, and he seemed to think that everything would become clear to me at MacDowell, that it would work its own magic.  I hope so.