Tap, Tap, Tap - IWSG July 2022

 

Welcome to IWSG Day. The goal of this blog hop is to share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a haven for insecure writers of all kinds. IWSG is the brainchild of the amazing and generous  Alex Cavanaugh. Thank you to co-hosts for July: J Lenni Dorner, Janet Alcorn, PJ Colando, Jenni Enzor, and Diane Burton! To read other contributors to IWSG click here.

July optional question: If you could live in any book world, which one would you choose?

In high school, I read a book called Celia Garth by Gwen Bristow, the fictional story of a young woman in Charleston during the American Revolution. It left me with a yearning to visit the South Carolina low country. Over the years since, I’ve read so many southern authors, Pat Conroy, Cormac McCarthy, Anne Rivers Siddons, Dorothea Benton Frank. If a book had the potential to mention a low country sunset, I was all in.

By the time my daughter moved to Charleston for a period and the chance came to visit, I could name the places I wanted to see –Trad Street, Rainbow Row, the Battery, Fort Sumpter, Sullivan’s Island, Folly Beach. She ended moving back there for a few years and through subsequent visits, I became familiar with the area. How I loved driving Route 17 from Charleston to Savannah and seeing kids casting shrimp nets by the side of the road, or slow trawlers waddling out to sea. I witnessed sunsets over winding creeks that were so beautiful they made me want to cry— it was all there— everything I read about in those books I so enjoyed.

But would I want to live there? Well, no, but not because the location doesn’t speak to me. It’s just that I lean equally toward books that feature New England. Perhaps it’s the familiarity that draws me in. I feel blessed to live less than an hour from a metropolitan city, but also close to lobster boats, farmers, apple orchards and tumbled stone walls, plus so much history almost everywhere we walk we mark famous footsteps. Case in point, two participants of the Boston Tea Party are buried in my town cemetery.

The other morning, I sat at my computer drafting this piece and looked out the window to see a truck from the local dairy farm delivering fresh milk in glass bottles to my neighbors. Where else does this happen anymore? When I read books that take place in this world, it’s like my oldest best friend, coming to visit.

So, to answer this month’s question, I can only say this. I'll always welcome an opportunity to visit the low country, but as Dorothy  said so famously as she tapped her ruby slippers, “There’s no place like home.”

If you could live in any book world, where would you live?

A YANKEE Day - IWSG

It's IWSG Day.  Click on the picture to link to other writers' posts, supporting other writers.

 There are certain Saturdays. 

As I write this, the thermometer hovers at nineteen degrees.  Still, it’s burning season and the rough winter has left us with piles of debris.  My husband patrols out back, wearing his wool-plaid burning shirt, tending to a fire.  Our daughter, currently taking an extended break from school, has left for work…a double shift which means she’ll be gone until late.  And I’m here, in the house, dressed in fleece and sweats, listening to the furnace click on and off while I play YANKEE MAGAZINE.

Almost thirty years ago, my husband’s mother bought us a subscription to YANKEE, a lifestyle publication featuring in-depth stories about New England culture that warm me deep down.  My favorite piece is a regular essay called “The View from Mary’s Farm,” by author Edie Clark.  By crafting the right details and employing a lyrical rhythm of words, she invites her readers to step into the wood stoves, the apple trees, the stone walls of her life.  In truth, when I began writing my own essays in Middle Passages, I saw myself as an Edie Clark wannabe.  I still do. 

 

I’ve learned a lot from Edie over the years.  About building a new life when an old one passes on, about small town idiosyncrasies and politics.  Through one of her books, I’ve come to know food that touches the heart, chowders and codfish cheeks, the pleasures of community suppers.  Each of her essays comes to me as a truthful kind of fantasy that adds depth to my own life.  And when I’m lucky, once in a while, a day arrives in which everything aligns in such a way that I may consciously emulate Edie.  Today is one of them, and while I work, I’m making beans.

I’ve already finished the blog post overdue from last week.  It’s all tuned up, ready to publish Monday, which leaves me with this post for Wednesday, tweaks to a SOUTH SHORE LIVING article due on Friday, and review of a critique partner’s manuscript.  And the beans.  I soaked them last night, and as I write this, they simmer on the stove.  In a while, I’ll drain them, dress them with molasses or maple syrup, add an onion, mustard, some thyme and boiling water.  I'll place them in a low oven and let them bake all afternoon.  That’s my project. 

Thanks to Edie, it’s what makes me feel like I’m accomplishing something Saturday-necessary and house worthy while I perch in front of the computer and write.  Tonight, I’ll sit down to supper draped in the comforting mantle of a day filled with good and enjoyable work.   

By sundown, there will be words and beans, and not long after, a bellyfull of comfort. In my mind, you can't get more YANKEE than that.