Yesterday I imagined walking into the lobby of the Bread Loaf Inn in the Green Mountains near Middleburg, Vermont to register as a general contributor at the 2018 Bread Loaf Writers Conference. I imagined quickly signing up for the workshops I wanted before they filled. I imagined eating breakfast, lunch and dinner in the large, boisterous cafeteria with 200 other aspiring writers. I imagined the day the excerpt from my working memoir, Black Rectangles would be critiqued. It would not be easy, I imagined, but I would be grateful for the kind of feedback that I would only get from a Bread Loaf experience.
I was not accepted as a general contributor at Bread Loaf, a disappointment that — as insensitive as this may seem — crushed me more than the death of my mother on January 6. I had submitted what I considered, and what other accomplished writers agreed, was my best Black Rectangles work. But that work was rejected. The words I had struggled for decades to get out and expressed so I could make sense of the abject abandonment in my life had abandoned me.
I’m still crushed. On Monday, I read the opening sentence of “Ad Man,” a section in the short story, “The Largesse of the Sea Maiden,” by the late Denis Johnson, and thought: this is precisely how I feel:
This morning I was assailed by such sadness at the velocity of life — the distance I’ve traveled from my own youth, the persistence of the old regrets, the new regrets, the ability of failure to freshen itself in novel forms — that I almost crashed the car.
That sentence reminded me of this New Yorker cartoon:
Yesterday I was pondering all of this (actually, more like feeling sorry for myself) on my daily walk when I ran into 80+year-old, diminutive Rachel. Instead of sitting in the middle of the path in her wheelchair like she usually does, she was slowly pushing the chair to a nearby playground. On the seat of the chair was the book, 1000 Places to See Before You Die.
“Hey there, young lady,” said Rachel. “You’re Kathy, right?”
“No, I’m Sharon, and you’re Rachel. You have a voice that sounds like music, remember?” I replied.
“Oh yes, you told me that last week. No one ever told me that before.”
“Well, you do. It makes me happy when I hear it.”
“No one ever told me that before, either,” said Rachel. I spotted the book resting in Rachel’s chair.
“You going to visit all of these places?” I asked.
“Oh heaven’s no! I don’t have time, but I like to read about them and imagine being there. I shut my eyes and there I am. It’s like magic!”
Like magic. As soon as I heard those words, I remembered the final two paragraphs of Johnson’s story, “The Largesse of the Sea Maiden”:
I note that I’ve lived longer in the past, now, than I can expect to live in the future. I have more to remember than I have to look forward to. Memory fades, not much of the past stays, and I wouldn’t mind forgetting a lot more of it.
Once in a while I lie there, as the television runs, and I read something wild and ancient from one of several collections of folk tales I own. Apples that summon sea maidens, eggs that fulfill any wish, and pears that make people grow long noses that fall off again. Then sometimes I get up and don my robe and go out into our quiet neighborhood looking for a magic thread, a magic sword, a magic horse.
“Rachel, you’re magic,” I said. I walked with her to a bench in the playground, then headed home to my quiet neighborhood, grateful that I had just been in a special place; a place where I saw a magic thread, a magic sword, a magic horse.
“Fire Horse” — watercolor by my beloved poet friend, Kathy Mitchell
(October 3, 1950 – December 5, 2000)
I read today’s post at least three times. I am sorry that Bread Loaf rejected your work. I’m even more sorry that you feel the words you have struggled with for so long abandoned you. Bread Loaf may have done this, but your loved ones have not abandoned you or your story. I feel grateful that you ran into Rachel yesterday during your daily walk. I hope you go to many special places where you see magic threads, magic swords and magic horses. XOXOXO
Thank you, Merrie Lee for your kind words and affirmation.
I woke up this morning wondering if I wasn’t somehow making a silk purse out of a sow’s ear about not getting into Bread Loaf; that I had somehow manipulated my encounter with Rachel so I wouldn’t feel so bad about not getting into Bread Loaf. But, the truth is, I DID encounter Rachel yesterday. We DID have that exchange. It WAS only a couple of hours after I had re-read, “The Largesse of the Sea Maiden” . . . so, despite my disappointment, I DID experience the largesse of Rachel yesterday. And I DID feel grateful. Sometimes the world works in mysterious ways. I can’t explain it. I can only witness it. Confirm it. xoxo
Your walks have become poetry. You take with you all you are feeling, and as you open yourself and see Rachel through the lens of your ache, Rachel sings! To you and to us. A truly magical piece.
My “walks have become poetry.” That’s humbling to take in, Carol. Thank you. I wish you could hear Rachel’s strong, musical voice. I never expected it would come from a frail older woman sitting in a wheelchair. Makes me wonder if my own voice is stronger than I realize.
Speaking of mysterious, in looking at the image on your post, I thought I was seeing a watercolor painted over another image. Then, looking closely, I decided that I was seeing the reflection of a room in your house off of the glass on the painting. Which is it?
Regarding this quote:
“I have more to remember than I have to look forward to.”
It is good to remember that though there may be fewer things to look forward to, some of those things will be the BEST things that ever happened … but we do not and cannot foresee them.
Thank you for continuing to see and interact with the people around you. So many people are too busy or distracted to bother and miss the magic entirely. You have multiplied the largesse of Rachel by sharing it with us. Thank you.
Beth — I was wondering if anyone would notice that watercolor’s “pentimento” — actually not true “pentimento” — but if you look carefully, you can see reflected in the glass (center right) my hands holding my iPhone and that is my bedroom in the background. Good eye!
[It just occurred to me that not everyone will know the meaning of “pentimento”: “a visible trace of an earlier painting beneath a layer or layers of paint on a canvas.]
I also appreciate your wise perspective that ahead of us may be the BEST things that ever happened. My beloved friend, AC, recently gave me a card with this quote from feminist Faye Weldon on the front: “Nothing happens and nothing happens and then everything happens.” I’m kinda counting on that.
Oh Sharon
You hold the magic. On your walk, it appears that “nothing happens” and yet everything happens–and you are at the core. You are participating. You are “willing.” And then you write about it so that we can participate too.
I’m sorry that Bread Loaf is still so painful, but I love this story and encounter.
I have walked that same path many times and have never met or seen Rachel. The conversations you share are simple, but sweet.
Am I the only one who noticed that Sharon imagines herself at Bread Loaf, while Rachel mentions imaging herself visiting these places she has never been? Sharon didn’t realize until I mentioned it to her.
Thank you, Adrienne. And you’re right — I never noticed the connection between my use of the verb “imagine” and Rachel’s. I DID notice the connection between the noun, “magic,” but not “imagine.” Guess that’s magic, too.