I read Jackie's blog and it helped me to remember how much I loved writing when I was younger. My dad owns a monument shop and every weekend I went with him while he sandblasted headstones and grave markers to different cemeteries throughout Iowa. While he worked hard for our family, I wandered the paths of stone to find a place to settle and read or write.
The one constant about cemeteries is that they are peacefully quiet. As long as a walked far enough away to lose the sound of my father's work I could lose myself in the silence. I'm not sure if it was the quiet or the constant reminder of all the lives that had existed before me, but cemeteries were always a place that inspired me to write. There is a calmness and a clarity that comes to me when I'm there. My words flowed a little more freely, my poetry came together a little more easily, and I didn't question every word that was going into my stories. I wish I still had those notebooks that I took with me. It would be wonderful to see my writing when it was less inhibited than it is when I'm writing for a grade.
With my memoir I'm trying to lose those conventional thoughts that have been bashed into my brain throughout school. I'm trying not to worry about leading the reader, but instead letting the story lead me. I just recently axed my first memoir idea and started over. Let us all hope that my writing takes me to a new place, that is truly me, and is inspired like the poems and stories I wrote in those cemeteries so many years ago.
I envy your Dad's job! I grew up in a house that backs into a cemetery, so I spent many hours among the graves (although they were boring flat ones and not the type I want to watch your dad make. How does he do different fonts? Does he use a guide? What about figures and pictures and angels?) I am happy to find another soul who finds cemeteries calming!
ReplyDeleteWeirdly enough, I also find cemeteries to be inspirational. There are so many stories buried there, so much emotion expressed on its grounds. I instantly become reflective and thoughtful when I'm in one. My sister and I grew up in rural area, and we often would ride our bikes down the country roads in search of interesting things like old graveyards. They fascinated me, but I've never thought to try write while in one.
ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting post, I like your reflection, though I think you should read this op-ed in the New York Times from Michael Cunningham about how we write for our readers: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/03/opinion/03cunningham.html?scp=1&sq=cunningham&st=cse
ReplyDeleteI love this post. I've always been a bit terrified of graveyards for some reason, but when looking at them as a place to think and reflect, they become a little more welcoming. Good luck with your new idea!
ReplyDeleteTo echo everybody, this is an interesting post. Going through my old writing, I remembered how much I loved to write when I was younger and, like you said, how easily it came. Like you, I'm trying to recreate the same feeling in my memoir. Hopefully I'll achieve the same ease of my childhood writing with more correct spelling and less mistakes. :)
ReplyDeleteI'm looking forward to seeing what new thing you have this week after you guys workshopped me so hard last week (ok I promise, no more of that this week).
ReplyDeleteI really appreciate how in this post you were able to create an image to diametrically opposed to how I would usually envision a cemetery.
I also enjoy a good cemetary. Once, off the beaten path in Mississippi I found an old cemetary, it must have been a family cemetary, there were maybe 50 gravesites or so. Some of the graves were surrounded by their own iron fence, well tended, with flowers. Some were falling down and hard to read. Although, without a doubt, New Orleans has the most intriguing cemetaries I have ever been in.
ReplyDelete