Whisky Prajer , who blogs, see: http://www.blogger.com/profile/14076228013022881173 and who is actually part of my “virtual community” and sole “friend” at www.lulu.com where he also sells books) made this comment which is worth reprinting and addressing:
“I'm struck by the ironies in the phrase, "Highly specialized individuals struggling at their desks in deep seclusion and not by linked communities of interest." No links to communities of interest, eh? That's certainly a romantic image, but good luck with any project produced in such a vacuum. I think that this scenario has always been the fallacy attached to the public image of the writer. Being a writer certainly requires productivity in solitude, but it has always required community as well: it's called an audience. Writers are actually performers -- sometimes in a collective with editors, graphic designers, publicity flaks, etc. -- sometimes solo, to very small groups (boho salons, church basements, etc). I suspect the romantic fantasy of a lone and lonely artist who lives in a little cottage and writes pages that everyone wants to read was given a shot of steroids by Thoreau. But when he wrote Walden his cabin was a short walk away from his mother's house, which he made daily. And much of his writing took place as visitors dropped by, sat down to tea, then overstayed their welcome. He might have had some profoundly mixed feelings about his situation, but I'd definitely call it a community.”
My relationship to communities is very mixed. As a small child, I was terrified of school and, as I was a smarty pants, the other kids made it clear I was a drag. First success came in high school dramatics, which meant intense community during a play -- then dispersal. Something similar happened in college: high intensity, then dispersal through graduation.
In the Sixties I came the closest to a happy community but my newspaper column, which took on the mayor, was yanked. In the Seventies I was part of a tight team of animal control officers but left for seminary because I believed Leadership School had finally revealed to me the secrets of community. But in seminary I was a misfit and trouble, except that my creative writing class (four women) was again a tight team that dispersed.
My community ideals broke when I became a minister. Stepping behind the scenes, sweeping aside the curtain, revealed a can of worms. I’ve had very little confidence in groups since then. Congregations can be vicious, ministers in a group even more so. Denominations, like political parties, eat their children. There is a huge body of books about all this, so I think there’s no need for me to add to the pile.
Someone this morning sent me a Writer’s Digest article advising never to let publishers know you are old or retired, because they will think you live in a trailer park with ten cats and are only good for one memoir. Likewise, an older woman in our society is seen as someone who is there to help youngsters and men. When I was living in East Glacier in the Seventies, the postmaster was Elizabeth (Betsy) Jennings who, with her husband Talbot, was a famous screenwriter. (“The Good Earth.”) Few people were her friends because they were afraid she would look down on them. (She didn’t.)
So then we turn to “virtual” community which is a “gathered” community based on affinity. The Internet erases gender, age, education, clothes, domicile and the state of one’s hairdo. My problem here is my several irreconcilable affinities: Blackfeet (still not that many computers); religion (omigod -- splintered and spattered); my family (mostly dead now); animals (co-opted by humane societies); ecology/environment (co-opted by governmental issues); Westerns (aging out); Bob Scriver and Montana (the door slammed shut when I asked too many questions); sexual issues (run for the door!) and some others.
Then came Tim Barrus and his “at risk” guys. Click. The built-in barrier of distance helps. They can't raid my refrigerator. But more than that is Tim’s willingness to see me as an equal with shared deep interests. C.S. Lewis said that the best friends are those who have different ideas about the same subjects. As writing partners we are too baffling to be stereotyped.
The phrase about writing in solitary splendor was not mine -- it came from Epstein’s excellent observations. He seems to be one of the few who understands that some publishing, especially of late, is a matter of business ONLY. “What to publish” depends on marketing surveys and is often determined by the company’s traveling salesmen, who say whether they think they can sell a particular book or not. Or land a contract with Walmart. They tend to be young, male and patronizing. I’ve met a few.
The “community wisdom” out there is that books are mostly bought by “Madge,” the manicurist who became a stereotype. If you look at the Powell’s daily reviews you’ll find what they think she’ll like: something that will grip her, that she won’t be able to put down, that will make her cry, that she will recommend to all her friends. (For guys it’s something similar but political.) Not "Walden."
Thoreau spent only a year or so in a cabin. All his life he walked, as he went taking natural history notes on whatever scraps of paper he had. When he got home, he organized them into a journal. (Annie Dillard did her walking in the library, taking notes of her reading on 3X5 cards which she organized into “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.” This is also Annie Proulx's method, though she uses local newspaper archives.)
Now and then Thoreau went through the journal to extract ideas which he composed into an essay. This essay was commonly delivered face-to-face to an audience. (No television, so he could see their reactions.) Then he rewrote it and delivered it again. When he felt it was polished enough, it was published. It did not make him famous in his lifetime or save him from a young death. His friend, mentor and sometimes employer, Emerson, did a little better. His friend Louisa May Alcott was poisoned to death by doctors treating her for depression.
We pick and choose the evidence we like. Here’s my evidence: I live in a village close to a people and place I love in order to do them good, but they don’t really know me now. I make my computer smoke all day and watch movies all evening. I do NOT want to swap recipes or photos of grandchildren. I care about a really good sentence or metaphor, but mostly I like sitting here working on them.
I'm not the best at community. Very uneven. I keep trying, but it's not a real talent of mine.
ReplyDeleteI have had a few bright spots, like when I went to the Institute of American Indian Arts, a year of intense connections and intense disasters. I was 20. A summer in the Youth Conservation Corps at age 17 was my initiation into instant communities. Being a field archaeologist aka shovel bum in my late 20s, living in a communal style thrown together with bunches of strangers in places around the country. I had a good experience with U of Montana's Wilderness and Civilization course. My graduate student years in my 30s at Iowa State were probably the summit of my experience in community. We were a close group of peers.
My work years otherwise have been dismal in terms of community mostly. The Park Service years and Forest Service years of my 30s and 40s were typical, where you work and you go home and do very little with other workers. All my community (mostly) successes have been in the context of being thrown into quick intimate living conditions with a bunch of strangers.
The regular jobs where you go home at night and live by yourself, have not resulted in any community. Communities based on an interest have never worked for me. Several churches and I have divorced-- I was the dumb spouse who never saw the signs until I had my bags in the street.
I have had a successful virtual community for about 15 years in an online forum I made and maintained for my tribe. I did ok with the Hawaiians when I lived there for several years in my 40s.
But the irony is this: I was raised in Helena, all my family is here, but I have no community sense here. There were a couple of starts. For example, I went to the Cathedral where I took first communion in the 60s, tried to volunteer for anything, got confirmation as an adult-- and was excluded in a pattern of unreturned calls, meaningful silences and glances, etc., except for the mailing of donation envelopes. Ironic... I wanted to volunteer to help with RCIA or anything else I could do, and all they wanted was money offerings from me, in this time of not having enough money to pay rent AND pay utilities most of the time. So I bailed and decided me and God would continue our relationship outside, at least for now.
I tried a few things like this, and even tried to hook up with old friends from high school, but Helena hasn't worked for me very well. I can't get an interview for any jobs here I am well-qualified for. One of my oldest friends hasn't spoken to me in over a year now. It's tough when you love home, but that love is unreturned, like a cold and distant mother.
I really do think that towns, cities, and other places have their own personalities, their own genius loci. Maybe I'd better try and pour some libations of whiskey to the goddess Helena, since Indian tobacco doesn't seem to do the trick, for me in Helena at least ;-)
So for me, maybe I am ok at community, but not so good at Helena's version of it :-)
If there was a "pure" writer who lived without need for a community, mostly, perhaps it was Emily Dickinson. She did have some contact with the outside world, even correspondence and a bit of getting published, but her fame came only after her death. More "pure" in this sense than Thoreau, if you will.
ReplyDeleteBut an extreme example like Emily can't work for all of us. I admire her, and I sometimes feel like a monk without a monastery, but I need contact with the natural world on a daily basis to keep me sane. And I do need my circle of friends, small as it might be.
I've been kicked out of several spiritual communities for walking the talk that they taught us. It took me awhile to learn that most such support groups are really more interested in endlessly rehearsing their woundologies than in getting past them. Sometimes this was traumatic on me, but after awhile I learned that "even eagles need a push to get out of the nest," and I realized that getting kicked out was a good way to take what I'd learned and move on anyway.
These days I don't look for community. I've been in too many situations where people declare themselves to be a community but in fact if you dissent you're attacked. A real community makes room for disagreement and diversity and differing viewpoints and has a process of reconciliation. A pseudo-community, which is what most online virtual communities eventually show themselves to be, tends to be intolerant of much dissent, and tends to let itself get polarized. So I don't look for community, because most of the time I think it's wishful thinking.
I feel most at home in small groups where diversity is applauded and accepted rather than merely tolerated. And as I have often found myself in that lightning-rod position of being the person who speaks the truths no one wants to hear, I have found such small groups to be the best place for me. I like such Temporary Autonomous Zones (a concept developed by radical philosopher Hakim Bey; you can find it all online).