Author Archives: Ginny East Shaddock

Mark’s Birthday weekend

Posted on July 25, 2006 by Ginny East Shaddock

I was away without internet access this weekend, so I wrote a bit on my laptop in sections and can post it now. You may wish to read it in spurts, for it is long. But believe it or not, if I had more time, I could go into more vivid detail about all I’ve seen and felt. Ah, the frustrations of having a mind so full and fingers so sluggish – not to mention a clock that ticks too fast to fit everything you desire to accomplish in the day. Anyway, here goes:



Friday: 


This weekend is Mark’s Birthday. I decided to take him away – pry him out of his house-building drudgery for a short weekend of leisure. So, I made reservations and tried to keep them a surprise. However, about a week ago, he started complaining about how busy he was and how he couldn’t be absent from the worksite for even a moment or things would go wrong. He pointed out mistakes being made every time he came home for dinner or had to meet me for an hour in the afternoon. I started to panic, thinking he’d kill me when I told him I’d planned a weekend away at this crucial time in the building process. I stressed about it for days, then cracked and told him about my plans. I had prepaid the weekend so there was no canceling. Leaving the surprise until the last moment seemed as if I was inviting resentment, or at least, a load of bad temper to spoil everything. Didn’t want my romantic get-a-way to turn into an obligatory thing. I wanted it to be something special.


 


So, I spilled the beans. He didn’t react negatively – he actually seemed pleased, although he mentioned how hard it would be to go away without some painting being complete because the hardwood floors and ceiling were going in this week. He couldn’t bare the thought of them being accidentally stained with color before they were treated. No problem. I got up at 5:30 am and went with him to the site and painted away. By 11:00 he was satisfied that things were in order, so we could leave guilt free. That was important – you can’t relax when you are thinking of all you should be doing. Luckily, none of the workers come in on the weekend, except the stone mason, so Mark won’t miss anything important – just the chance to get ahead. I figure, he can take a weekend off for a birthday.


 


I’ve taken him to see the Biltmore Estates in Asheville. Staying at the Biltmore seemed a bit pricy at 500 bucks a night– as a couple we’ve never been that impressed with extravagance, we are more delighted with charm – so I picked a Victorian Bed and breakfast with all the trimmings instead. It seemed thematic.  We are staying in the Beaufort House in the Dogwood Cottage. This is a beautifully restored Victorian home, complete with vintage antiques, china and old world quaint decor. They serve a formal breakfast in a gorgeous dining room, china, linen, and all, at 8:30 AM. We were greeted today with a wine and cheese banquet, having missed the high tea at 4:00. I have to tell you, I’m loving the ambiance. My mind slips away and I am in one of my romance novels, seeing my heroine walk down the grand staircase, her face vibrant with enthusiasm for the adventure I will thrust her into with my keyboard. I find myself taking notes of the details around me, the trim on the chair rail, the throw pillows, the pictures and china patterns. It is like stepping into the past. Fun.


 


At this moment, I am sitting outside on a small wooden deck at a bistro table while Mark is getting a massage inside with a physical therapist/masseuse. This was a service offered by the Beaufort House that I couldn’t resist setting up in advance. I figure it will set the tone of this birthday weekend – time to relax. Mark’s body has been so beat up and sore lately, he can barely function. I think this, above all else, will make his birthday perfect. I had a special mocha cake delivered to the room and a bottle of wine, chocolates and special tea bath crystals with candles. These are the kinds of luxuries you can organize in a quaint bed and breakfast – such a far cry from the average hotels bustling with tourists down the street. And all of it comes to less than half the cost of the Biltmore, so the luxury comes without guilt. That makes everything even nicer.


 


Tonight we will go explore downtown – or maybe just have dinner somewhere. They have a jazz club here – that always makes my knees go week. Ashville is one of the top eleven art districts in America too, so I’m betting we will spend some time in the galleries. Tomorrow we will see the amazing Biltmore Estates, home of the Vanderbilt’s in the early 1900’s. It’s the closest you can get to a castle in America (the largest home ever built in this country), with some 288 rooms. I’ll talk more about that after I see it tomorrow. We are taking a special behind the scenes tour to learn about the construction and how things worked in the house – fun for Mark because he likes to build things and for me because I like to experience things, ask questions, so I know enough to write about them.       


 


This bed and breakfast has an amazing history too (I’ve been reading information provided about it out on the porch while sipping my wine). It was built in 1895 by the State Attorney General for his new young wife. It went through changes, turning into a boarding house in the 1970’s and believe it or not, Charlton Heston and his wife rented a room here for a year while they saved money to go to California – the guy had this crazy dream of becoming an actor. Ha. Maybe this place is lucky. Anyone really curious about this Bed and Breakfast can see it online. It’s a marvelous place to stay.


 


Ah – the massage is done. I can go inside now. I’m almost sorry… it is lovely out here and I could write much more . . . but I don’t think ignoring the birthday boy would earn me brownie points.


 


Later:


Mark was so relaxed after his massage; he looked like someone strung out. His eyes were all glassy and blood shot, his arms hanging limp at his sides as if it was too much effort to lift them. He said he felt great, but I think the combination of a glass of wine, a massage, and just being away made him crash. We went to an authentic pizza joint recommended by the masseuse, but didn’t eat much. We chose to return to the room and ended up laying in bed and watching a movie instead of going out – not a bad choice considering the feather quilts and pillows and the big double Jacuzzi hot tub in the room. Ha. Don’t think that is authentic Victorian décor (the hot tub) but it sure is welcome by someone all broken and beat up by trees, as Mark has been. Tomorrow we will go to the Biltmore. Can’t wait.


 


Morning:


We gather in the dining room for our complimentary breakfast (which is why this is a “bed and breakfast”, not a “bed and bagel” stop, I suppose). They had a full house, all 11 rooms were occupied by couples so 22 people sat around a huge Victorian table set with china and adorned with flowers. A few extra tables were set up about the perimeter and we sat at one of these. It provided a beautiful view of the bushes outside and the veranda (complete with an old fashion swing). We were served juice and coffee first while we shared conversation with other couples. Such interesting people choose to stay at a place like this, it makes conversation vivid and enjoyable. We especially connected with a couple our age who have been married just a year. They are building a house now (two lives merging into one requires a new start – what better way to go about it than by building a place of their own) and they came to Asheville to purchase a piece of art for an empty wall. They were lovely.


 Breakfast arrived. We were given a homemade banana muffin (mine are better) and eggs benedict (mine is also better) and a hot, crusty pear dumpling. (I never made one, but I would be hard pressed to do better. This was fantastic! Wow. You can bet, I’ll try it at home so next year, I can claim mine is better . . . maybe.) Breakfast made this stay truly special. I was fascinated by the woman who runs this establishment – she does all the cooking, organizing, checking in – etc. She was a marvel.


 


For years, Mark has said he would love to run a bed and breakfast. I’ve never been as keen on the idea. I love to cook, but only for the people I love. I certainly don’t want to do it on demand, as a job. And clean after others?. Thanks but no thanks. He had this romantic vision of us growing herbs in a garden and me cooking with them, people entering our lives to share our home and leaving feeling refreshed and inspired. But one man this morning was complaining about the creaky floors as if the bed and breakfast was unkempt because of the noise in the hall. I commented that when you stay in a one hundred year old Victorian home, the creaky floors are a part of the ambiance. They make it all authentic so really, they shouldn’t be offensive. The man rolled his eyes as if I was an ass. I looked at Mark and whispered, “That is why I would hate to run one of these establishments.” The point is, you can’t control the people who visit, and so much of the public is spoiled and impossible to please. If we haven’t learned that in our years of business, we’ve learned nothing.


 


With the lovely morning meal behind us, we took off for the Biltmore.


 


The Biltmore experience:


 


    George Vanderbilt’s great grandfather borrowed $500 to purchase a ferry to transport vegetables from the main land to Staten Island. He must have been a hard worker because in his lifetime, he grew his business to a net worth of 100 million. (And in today’s time that is worth 8 billion – not bad for any entrepreneur.) He got into shipping just when the timing was right. His son (George’s father) inherited that fortune and doubled it- got into the railroads just when the time was ripe.  I think that is where the work-ethic gene (and good timing) in this family fizzled out. George Vanderbilt, the youngest of 8 children, inherited 5 million from his father and 5 million from his grandfather. He devoted his life to spending it.


      George considered himself an intellectual. He read a great deal – in fact, he kept track of everything he read from the age of 12 on. It totaled about 3500 books when he died. That is two per week all his life. (I wasn’t much impressed. I may even have him beat – certainly, my MFA work has me pushing the numbers.) He traveled the world collecting art and antiques and studying architecture to plan his spectacular home in the <ST1laceName w:st=”on”>North Carolina</ST1laceName> <ST1laceType w:st=”on”>Mountains</ST1laceType>, patterned off the grand estates and castles in Europe. No one knows how much he spent, because he paid for things privately and kept no records, but I walked through the estates thinking he certainly didn’t have enough money with a measly 10 million (estimated worth today at 66 million) to build Biltmore. He must have had some investments too, because to build this house today would top 66 million for sure. Heck, Disney spent more than that on a theme park years ago. 


    It’s amazing – for that investment doesn’t include the art and antiques inside, which include Renoir oils and over 1600 prints by famed artists. Most of the furniture is 16th century or older, and the tapestries are from the 14th century. George acquired the table that Napoleon’s heart rested on for 5 days as they were doing an autopsy. Guess that is the kind of conversation piece you get for the man who has everything. Amazing. His library holds thousands of hand tooled leather books, antiques by their own right. The china and linens alone are worth a fortune.


    We walked through this monstrosity, amazed and slightly put off. What kind of person chooses to live this way? They say this home is George Vanderbilt’s contribution to the world. I couldn’t help but think that is a pretty dismal display of a life well lived. Considering the man’s resources and family power, it all seems grossly indulgent to me. I guess if he made the money through hard work or innovation I’d feel differently – or if he left some other significant mark on the world, the house would seem a just reward. As it was,  I imagined a spoiled rich kid who thinks he is important because he can buy things, traveling the world to acquire more and more, and probably not understanding or having empathy for any of the repressed people he encountered along those travels. In the lecture that accompanies the tour, they kept mentioning how kind the Vanderbilt’s were to their servants etc. but it didn’t change my gut feelings about the family much.   


    Biltmore, when it was built in 1890, (finished in 1895) was a marvel of modern convenience. All 288 rooms were wired for electric lights. Unfortunately, there were two systems being claimed as the route to the future, but George did not choose Edison’s. They had to upgrade to the correct system after all the electrical work was initially done. George Vanderbilt also had a marvelous new convenience that the country help they hired didn’t trust at all. Flush toilets. With some 45 bathrooms in the house, people had only to pull a chain to see their waste disappear. Amazing! The bathrooms were all identical, with plain, cream tile like something out of a prison, each sporting a claw foot tub and toilet.  Sinks hadn’t been invented yet. People still used a washbasin to wash their face and hands, calling for a servant to bring them a pitcher of warm water when desired. The running water in the home was all cold, so I suspect the servants were bringing in hot buckets of steaming water to add to the bath too – “convenience” is a relative term.  


      Downstairs they had an indoor pool, a workout room with all the newest equipment (a medicine ball, parallel bars and a rowing machine). We toured the kitchens complete with a pastry room, roasting room, vegetable storage and other divided rooms to combat the heat. The laundry rooms were fascinating too, with a new fangled device that spun the clothes to remove the water after things were washed and a huge drying room where sheets were hung on long poles and slid into a warm oven sort of device so they dried where they wouldn’t be seen.


     I especially loved our back stage tour where we saw unfinished rooms and the basement. I saw how coal was delivered for the three huge furnaces to heat the home, the air vents used to cool the upstairs, and the room devoted to electrical switches that controlled it all. We saw how the dumbwaiters worked and the small tubes set in the walls, which allowed staff to talk to each other from one level to another (like talking into a Dixie cup on a string when you were a kid).


    Many of the rooms have invisible doors that you can only see when you look very carefully, because paneling and pictures are on them so they blend into the walls. This allowed servants to move about unseen and reminded me of gothic horror movies. George built a bachelor’s wing, so the men could come in late and not disturb the female guests (hummmm, guess convenience has many faces). A few nudes are hung in the hallway here. Fascinating. I loved how, when you walk by the men’s smoking room by the grand dining hall, the smell of tobacco is still pungent (or so I was told). A hundred years later and the whiff of those men is still there, like the ghost of their leisure.


      There were some odd facts that jumped out at Mark and me, for example, the family never finished the music room on the main floor (until 1970). The room is in a significant place in the front entryway, yet it was boarded off and left. Why? We speculated that the wife caught George with a female maid there or something, so she demanded it be closed off, never used. It was such an unexplainable odd thing – and no one talks about “why” today. In fact, the tour contains many such mysteries that make you wonder about the people who lived there. I think the Vanderbilt’s keep their family secrets in the closet as well raised, affluent families do. For example, George died in 1914 from appendicitis; but his wife only lived in the home for two more years. When her daughter married, she claimed that there was only room for one woman in the house, (in 288 rooms?) so she moved away and never returned again. Sounds fishy to me, as if she was looking for an escape clause. Their daughter divorced ten years later and went to Europe, never to return either -another one bailing from the family home . . why?  Makes you think it may not have been the happy place history paints it to be.


    The home is still privately owned by the family, only it is now open to the public as part of a “for profit” enterprise. At 35.00 a ticket and 7.00 more for the audio lecture (which you must get to understand any of what you are seeing) and 15.00 for the behind the scenes tour (that makes it 57.00 per person) I imagine they are working towards recouping their investment. Takes time with a white elephant of this size.


   The grounds were spectacular – the gardens amazing. They have fishponds and mountain views, a waterfall and bass pond, some 17,000 acres to explore, much of it developed for ultimate beauty.  They have a winery, of course, a carriage house and stables – just about anything you can imagine.


   We had lunch in a posh restaurant on the grounds, actually it was built in what was formerly the stables. We ate in a refurbished stall on a table decked in linens and china, the windows and sky-high tile ceiling the original of this carriage house. I imagined a young stable boy sitting on a bucket right where our table was placed, flies swarming around his head, straw at his feet and horses whinnying nearby, hearing someone telling him a tall tale about how one day, a hundred years hence, people would pay 12.00 for a sandwich to sit and eat right there in the stables. That kid would laugh himself off the stood at such an absurd claim.


       All told, it was a fascinating trip. I so love history and writing about it, that walking through those halls has special meaning for me. I see the faces of the people who lived this way in my mind, both the privileged and those that served them, and the many guests or the children born into this lifestyle, imagining what they thought and felt as they went through their days. It’s like stepping back in time and being a fly on the wall.


       Mostly, I think the entire project was sad – doomed from the beginning. Had George Vanderbilt built his magnificent home 300 years prior, it would have been happily used by his family for years to come. Like the great castles in Scotland or mansions in England. I’m sure that was his intention, but as it was, Biltmore was only used about 40 years. Why? My theory is that it became obsolete almost as soon as it was complete. America went through such a huge leap of growth in the industrial revolution that this home, seeped in history and heritage, couldn’t keep up.


    Within twenty years, the automobile was invented. Oops, there goes the main use of the carriage house and stables – and I doubt the automobiles back then could make it up the mountain – thus alienating their rich guests from visiting and sticking the family with a passé mode of transport. All kinds of new things were invented from sinks and refrigerators, to water boilers and stoves. The phone and telegraph was invented – and suddenly the tubes in the walls (designed so staff could talk to each other) had to seem old fashion – George’s original intention of building the most progressive home ever became the exact opposite. Probably a dismal disappointment to him and his wife.


     Considering the impact of the great industrial revolution, you can see that this monstrosity of a home, designed in the fashion of the wealthy family ancestry homes of Europe, just didn’t fit in to the new world’s lifestyle. Even the servants required to run the home would have had other options for employment. They went to factories, or to war – got married and had their own businesses as the world suddenly offered opportunity to the common man. Women could suddenly go out in public. They could vote. They didn’t have to fold sheets and be invisible in the great house anymore, protected from the world. All people slowly became free of the strict Victorian policies and attitudes. Once that ball started rolling, it didn’t take long (imagine the roaring 20’s a few short years after this ridged old world attitude existed)  Class distinction was not as powerful as it once was and everyone learned they had rights- not just the rich. And they wanted to exercise them.


   I think Biltmore was simply a home built too late for it to thrive in the manner it was intended.


   But that doesn’t mean it isn’t impressive and a marvel to witness. I loved every minute of the tours and the hours we spent leisurely walking the grounds. We speculated about the personal lives of those that walked this plat of earth before us, the fights they had over the original construction, the way George must have poured over plans and designs as he built his dream home. The Vanderbilt’s must have showed off at first, inviting everyone who was anyone to visit, then I bet they felt trapped by it later. I wonder how the future generations feel looking at it all today – or how his father and grandfather felt the first time they looked at the opulence, knowing their boy never worked as they did but spent so liberally. Bet they didn’t like it much, and this probably caused stress between son and father.


      For us, seeing Biltmore was not just about seeing Biltmore – it was imagining the stories behind those walls. Fun!  


     The family still owns the home, and they certainly have family pride, evident in how they present it all to the public. The grandson’s voice introduces the home on the audio tape, making it all sound so romantic and whimsical, as if George Vanderbilt left this terrific accomplishment behind for all of mankind. But knowing history as I do, and having studied America’s culture from 1850 and on, helping me understand the realities of life back then, I came away with a very different feeling from the tour than intended by the presentation. On the surface it is beautiful and amazing – a virtual museum of artifacts and living history. But underneath –the reality of the project, ah, it makes a history buff/imaginative girl’s head spin with the possibilities.


   Word has it that in the depression they charged a dollar to see the mansion. But it was a huge drain of the family resources, losing 250 thousand dollars a year just for upkeep (in today’s dollars, just imagine how much that was). It fell to disrepair, unused, but in the 1970’s it underwent a huge restoration. The family actually had companies make copies of the original wallpaper and fabrics so what you see today is the original mansion. They planned to turn it into a tourist attraction – which worked beautifully. There were busses and busses of people being carried from the parking lots to the house like it was Disneyland or something. We were a bit off-put by the crowds, but at least when we walked the grounds we found some solace and could imagine that was what it was liked a hundred years ago for guests.  


     For all that Biltmore is a successful tourist attraction today, I imagine a wealthy great grandson’s dilemma now of making a business out of this family land just to keep it from draining them dry. He is wrestling with state taxes and all kinds of financial red tape that George Vanderbilt never had to deal with. This man probably has a very different work ethic, an empire of investments to run, much like his ancestors that ran the shipping empire to build the family fortune. The day’s of inheriting wealth and being a gentleman of leisure (those that worked were considered a poor excuse for a gentleman in the pre-Victorian era and many a family’s estates were lost through the excess gambling, drinking, and spending done in the name of gentleman’s leisure in Europe) are gone. 


      Business rules the world now and success in business is admired foremost, even in the world of wealth and privilege. As such, a home like Biltmore is an investment, and in the tradition of the 21st century American way, the family has found a way to make it profitable.


    Historically, Biltmore is a gift to the world. George intended something different, for sure, but he left a legacy in a historical home that, due to it being made of stone, copper and marble, has permance, not to mention a collection of authentic artifacts preserved for generations to come. Anyone with a healthy bank account balance can enjoy them… um…. not to be confused with state run museums or libraries that are a true gift to the world, available to all.  It all goes to show something good lies in everything . . . you just have to be patient until time reveals the true value to mankind. And perhaps, more time must go by before the true legacy of the Biltmore estates is revealed. Until then, it is great fun for a visit if you can afford it.


 


In closing:
I need to sum up this weekend, so I will end by just saying we spent the late afternoon browsing through art galleries (I’m becoming ever-more convinced we could run one of these successfully, so I look at them through different eyes – summing up the business potential, artistic integrity and such.) Then, we were so tired and still full from our stable lunch that we decided to have a picnic in our room rather than go out. We stopped at this amazing fresh market deli/grocer and bought apples and gouda cheese, crusty bread, shrimp, a chicken, watermelon and crab and artichoke dip and took it back to the room, where we ate in bed watching another movie (I swear, we never watch TV – but it felt decadent and lovely for some reason to lay around – totally lazy). We polished off the rest of the wine and Mark’s cake. Indulgence seemed the theme of the day.


 


The next morning we had another wonderful Victorian breakfast with Cranberry muffins, fruit salad and blueberry waffles. Yum. We then went to a huge art festival at the convention center to browse the high-end craftsmen and their goods. We were lucky it happened on our weekend in town, for this is a well-known exhibit in North Carolina – one we have often said would be nice to attend. We talked to a woman who makes quilts that we have admired at other events and saw some other unique work. Fun. Then, we went home to gather the family for the real birthday celebration. We went to dinner and saw a movie, “My Super ex-girlfriend”. Ha. Guess we reached our intellectual quota for the weekend, so a mindless movie was all we could face. Kids liked it best.


 


And now . . . I am home. Behind on my work (the theme of my life) and hustling to get on top of things. But somehow, stepping away, removing yourself from your life for a short while, gives you great steam to tackle it once again. So now, without excuses – I must get to it.   

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She’s gone wild berry wild

Posted on July 19, 2006 by Ginny East Shaddock

Help. I can’t stop picking blackberries. It’s like I have blackberry radar or something, because I can be driving along, lost in the world of my mind, and suddenly I see them on the side of the road like a beacon.


 


I’ll say, “You see those blackberries?”


Mark will say, “What blackberries?”


The miniscule blackish morsels may be tiny and tucked obscurely underneath branches, but I see them, and I CAN’T ignore them.


So I will stop the car and gather a few in the bowl I keep in the back seat for just this purpose – or if we are in a hurry to go somewhere, I’ll return later to pick them on the sly. Can’t resist.


 


Yesterday, I went for a run. I haven’t gone running since before my residency, so I was a bit annoyed with the state of my path. I’ve picked up over six large trash bags filled with discarded cups and beer cans out there (If I ever get into heaven, it will be for environmental sainthood – sure won’t gain entry for anything else). And don’t ya know that in the two weeks I’ve been gone, the dirty, rotten, stink’in, lazy, slobbish, ignorant, jackass who throws waste out of his car window (I don’t like this guy, in case you haven’t noticed) has been up to his old habits. Apparently, he didn’t notice, or appreciate, the lovely clean road I’ve supplied him with for his drive home. Jerk.


 


Anyway,  I’m plodding along, thinking that I’m over being this guy’s outdoor maid. I’m gonna leave the trash where it is, because I’ll be moving in two months, and for all I care, the guy can drown in it . . . when I see a bush dripping with blackberries. I’m sort of glad I don’t have any vessel to put them in, because, frankly, we are overrun with blackberries, and my family is making fun of me over my enthusiasm now. The freezer is filled with one cup proportioned baggies of blackberries  – we have a huge vat of blackberry cobbler in the fridge and bowls of blackberries awaiting a fruit salad fate. I’ve given a few pints to my sister-in-law, and I’m forever looking for recipes to use the ones I keep dragging home. Finding good recipes for blackberries isn’t easy considering my husband announced this week that he really doesn’t like blackberries all that much (NOW he tell me?)


 


Anyway, back to my quest. I sigh as I look at those ripe, flavorful berries and jog on, but a few steps down the path and I see a big plastic 64-ounce subway cup on the road. Now, I figure picking it up would be good for the environment AND it would supply me with a vessel to collect a few more blackberries ( I can justify any passion, sad to say). So, I pick up the cup, backtrack and come home with more fruit.


 


I just can’t resist. They are free, fresh, and I like ’em. I told Mark I was worried I wouldn’t snap out of it. Maybe I’ll need electro shock therapy or something to kill the blackberry-picking obsession. He said the season would be over in about 5 weeks, so I’ll be saved. Till then, I’ll keep picking. Perhaps I should mention here that my giant blueberry bush is starting to turn. But blueberries are not as controversial as blackberries – they are more versatile when it comes to cooking, they have no thorns, and are sweeter by far . Picking them is a family affair, so I won’t feel so circumspect when I shift my focus to a new berry.  


 


At least, I am not the only person with this serious blackberry picking affectation. My sister came to visit for a few days and don’t ya know, she has it too. Must be genetic! The first day here she said, “Let’s pick some blackberries.” She didn’t know I’ve been at this for a week already. We spent a day on the land, picking away. She is quite an aggressive blackberry harvester. She got all scratched up, but she announced it was worth it to best me at the deed. That is debatable, of course. At one point, I noticed my kids in the car, resting and enjoying the air conditioning. Linda and I were out there slaving away at the bush, delighting in filling our bowls, smiling with blackberry-stained tongues. It’s obvious who the real kids in this family are.


 


The next morning,  Linda was out on the porch having a cigarette and she spies another bush. She dumps her coffee cup out and walks over in her PJ’s to pick more, gathering them in her cup, a cigarette hanging out of her mouth like Betty Davis. Yea – she has the dreaded blackberry obsession too.


 


We had a great time while she was here. We rode the horses and she gave me training advice (she is a far better rider than I, having spent years showing horses while I was dancing). We also went to the feed store to buy some supplies and came away with more baby chickens. She couldn’t resist – I couldn’t say no. I now have two tiny silkies (the chickens that grow low feathers on their bodies and feet that look like fur) and two bantams (miniature chickens) and four that have these huge tuffs of feathers on their head like they have an afro. They are all “fancy” chickens – not for eating or egg laying. They are for ambiance, don’t ya know.


 


The second day Linda was visiting, we called my brother Dave, who lives 1 ½ hour away. We invited him to dinner, but didn’t expect him to come. Sure enough, he came with his two sons to see my house and land (this is the first time my siblings have seen any of what we are creating here.) Strangely enough, then, my dad called. He was flying home to Florida from Cincinnati (where he went to play poker with some old buddies) and he missed his connecting flight out of Atlanta. So, since he was stuck, he rented a car and zipped over. Now, I had almost my entire family (sans Mom) together for this grand showing off of the new Hendryville. We explored the land with our four wheelers, and inspected the house. All were impressed and gushed lovely, generous compliments. My brother said, “Wow, this is more magnificent than my own plans for when I win the lottery.”  


Yes, well, many days if feels as if we won the lottery ourselves.


 


It was a nice weekend, although Mark had to work through much of it. He is drowning in labor with this house, trying to stay one-step ahead of the workers so he can put in all the special details he dreams up. My sister and I went to see how he was doing on the day we were riding, and he was covered head to toe in sawdust. Linda said, “Gee, your husband looks like a powered donut nowadays.” Ha. Perfect description.


 


Having a few days with my family was a joy. But it does put me behind in my homework, so today, I have to buckle down and get something done.  I’ve given myself one hour to blog, and time’s up. Sigh.


 


Before I go, I thought I should mention that I lost Kathy again. That happened after my last residency too – I came home to find her in jail. If we don’t have consistent meetings, she fades away, loses her focus. I went to the Appalacian college for our scheduled reading session on the Monday I got back from Lesley, but she didn’t show up. I figured it was the day before July 4 (and the college was closed) so perhaps it was just a matter of bad communication. But I haven’t heard from her since and her phone is disconnected. (This happens with her often, due to financial restraints.) I suppose she’ll call evenutally and we will get back on track. Anyway, it’s depressing. It’s hard to save the world when the world refuses to show up.


 


 


 

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A basket, naturally.

Posted on July 14, 2006 by Ginny East Shaddock


 


Here is a picture of my basket made from nature. (Two angles). I picked a base twig with a cool, natural loop in it, thinking I could hang this basket from that end. Eventually, when I put it in my writing room I’ll do just that, but for picture sake, it is resting now on a sheet. I was sort of annoyed that Mark took the picture before I had a chance to “clean up” the basket. That is when you tuck in and tie off little ends of material in the weave. You wait for the project to dry a bit before doing this step. So if any basket connoisseurs are out there thinking I am a sloppy basket maker – well, it is only because you are peeking before I had a chance to tidy up. If you look carefully, in this basket you’ll see sea grass, corn husks, palm tree fluorescents, and big dried flower leaves (the things that look like ribbon.) The end product is very stiff and solid, as dried material from nature gets in time. Anyway, it may not be perfect, but you can be sure no one else in the world has one since it is free form and original. I think originality counts for something. I had plans to give this one away to a teacher of mine who has a deep love of nature, but now I’m thinking I could do better.. My firsts always are a learning thing.  Maybe next time, I’ll stick with items I find on my own land – blackberry vines, string from around the horses hay, etc. That would make the making of it more fun, and it would come with a secret story. I like a little hidden history in my gifts. Even if I am the only one who knows what makes it uniquely mine.
 

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Blackberry escapades

Posted on July 13, 2006 by Ginny East Shaddock

I’ve just returned from a semi-victorious walk around the mountain. I did indeed gather ¾ a bowl of sweet, succulent blackberries. I also return with 45 scratches, hands full of embedded prickles, a bee-sting, and a semi-twisted ankle. Not my fault, of course.


 


I believe any effort is a success if you learn something in the process. This is what I’ve learned today.



  1. Bee’s like me. Or maybe it is fairer to say they like the vanilla lotion I slather on myself each morning after the shower. I bought this from a lovely woman at the farmer’s market. She makes all these wonderful natural products from scratch and when you buy some, she pauses to tell you stories about her family and where she got the ingredients and how she made the products. Love that. But facts are fact. The best scent for me now a days is “deep woods off”. I know this, but I am stubborn. I may have no sense of smell, but the men I encounter do, and I want to smell pretty. As such, I must live with the fact that I have great bee-appeal. I truly doubt any of those men that I make the effort to smell nice for, take notice of me at all, but the bees find me very desirable. What ya gonna do?
  2. It is wise to just skip reaching beyond the cliff to get that great clump of berries, no mater how agile you like to pretend you are. Because you might slip and slide 5 feet down the mountain. This kind of thing has the potential to give you 45 scratches and a semi-sprained ankle. Yes, it is better if you pull on the vine and bring the berries to you. Duh.
  3. If you say you are going to do something, you should do it. Especially if what you say you are going to do is wear jeans and a long sleeve shirt (and maybe gloves). It isn’t a good idea to just go out in capri’s and a tank top thinking you’ll just pause to gather the easy to reach berries on the side of the road this time . . . There are no easy to reach berries on the side of the road. Others have beat you to them. All the really good, juicy berries are in the thicket, calling to you like a siren with talons at the ready. And come on, it is not as if you don’t know your own weaknesses.
  4. If you want to gather wild flowers on your walk, it is best to do this after you pick berries, or on another walk altogether. An armful of yellow daisies is rather cumbersome when you are fighting thorns, and if you keep putting them down, they get dirty and start losing their pedals and you end up coming home with a wad of sad looking, broken stemmed, wilted, yellow daisies – though I must say they are a very appropriate compliment to 45 scratches, a bee sting and a semi-sprained ankle. I guess Mother Nature does not reward greedy guests.   

 


I am hoping I’ll have more luck later in the berry quest.  I actually went on line and downloaded an article about growing blackberries in North Carolina. There are 11 species and they fall into three cultivar types. I hope I will be able to recognize what I’m picking soon. I already can see differences. Once I read this article I will learn what makes the berries sweet and lots of other juicy details, like how to prune and train blackberry plants(to avoid the warrior method I’m employing now) Fertility management (sounds fancy, huh) and harvesting and nutritional composition.
I will be a true blackberry aficionado.

But right now – I have to do some homework. So much for a relaxing walk to prime the artistic pump. Sigh.

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Blackberries abound!

Posted on July 13, 2006 by Ginny East Shaddock

Ouch. Why is it I remember picking blackberries as a kid, but I don’t remember how painful it is. Eeesh. Yesterday, Mark honked at me as I was driving out the entrance of our land to point out a blackberry bush that was dripping with ripe fruit. Therefore, I stopped the car to pick some with him. Not like I haven’t talked about these berries incessantly – anxiously awaiting their ripening. But I wasn’t dressed for the thorn battle that ensued. (I was wearing nylon workout wear.) My hands were stained purple in about two minutes. I felt ambushed by the bush, so I gave up after about a cupful of berries. But today, I’m ready.  I will don jeans and a long sleeve shirt and maybe I’ll even be wimpy enough to wear gloves. I’m on a blackberry quest, don’t ya know.


 


And to properly inspire myself, I’ve spent an hour on epicurious.com (The very best and most terrific cooking recipe website in the universe – and thanks to it, I can’t imagine I’ll ever buy a cookbook again – try it!)   I’ve downloaded all kinds of fun blackberry recipes. My biggest dilemma now is what to make tonight when I return from battle with my rewards – hopefully two or three buckets of blackberries. I have a great blackberry peach cobbler recipe (good because it is also peach season in Georgia and I want to take advantage of that too). I also have blackberry bread pudding and some pies and such. But we are on a diet (big cooking drag) so I’ll probably stick to blackberry buttermilk panna cottas with blackberry compote. Nice, tidy proportions so no one can complain. Tomorrow I pick up my daughter from camp, so I suspect we’ll be having a big family breakfast Saturday. I’m planning whole-wheat pancakes with blackberry syrup (another recipe from epicurious).


 


I have even stumbled upon some outdoor cooking recipes with blackberries for my ever-growing wilderness cooking collection. I’ve been on this outdoor cooking kick – not doing it – just wanting to learn more about it so I can. Mark makes fun of me and says, “When you live on the land and can go up to the house to your great kitchen and the barbeque and all, why do you think you’ll ever want to cook outdoors in a pit or on an open fire? Well, because I can, dopey. Gee, isn’t that obvious.  I told him I want to have a big barbeque party where everything is made right there, outside. Potatoes in the coal pit, chili on a huge kettle over a fire, etc… He grins, thinking, that’ll be the day. Ha. I’ll show him.  


 


Anyway, I’m of to pick blackberries. First I’m going on the mountain here by the cabin, and later when I go feed the horses, I’ll continue on the land. I might even take a run and harvest some of the thousands on the cattle ranch fence (if no one is looking) I think I’ll be looking like a Smurf this month, with blue stained fingers. But I am striding boldly into new territory – the world of blackberries. I always love a good savory adventure.

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Stepping into real estate

Posted on July 12, 2006 by Ginny East Shaddock

Last night, my husband came home from his first real estate school class complaining. He has reading, you see, and some homework. Granted, he chose an accredited school that is quite involved. If he is five minutes late, they lock the door and he has to pay 25 bucks to retake the class on-line. This is the sort of real estate class that provides a foundation for being a broker and/or appraiser too, so it isn’t one of those help-you-study-just-to-assist-you-in-passing-the-test classes. This one is more information based, with a reputation that employers look for, for those with long-term, serious plans in the field.


 


Nevertheless, I looked at him drolly and said, “Homework? And you’re expecting empathy from me?”


 


He sniffed and said, “I’m NOT in a master’s program. This is different. I don’t have time for homework.”


 


Ha, the only thing “different” is our personalities. He likes to learn as he goes, and he doesn’t have the fortitude or the patience to learn anything in a traditional way. He gets a smidgen of information, and he runs with it. I tend to feel a smidgen of information only wets my appetite. I’m certainly not comfortable “running” with it.  If anything, I’m someone whom the more she knows, the more she discovers she doesn’t know. Ignorance is bliss, as they say, and as the outer layers of the onion are unpeeled, I’m compelled to keep stripping away to see what is underneath. Most things are more complex than they seem on the surface, and digging in to unveil the mystery makes me feel a deeper connection with the subject. My husband, on the other hand, would just swallow the entire onion in one ungraceful bite, burp, then say, “Taste’s good, give me another onion.. . or how about a kumquat?”


 


I told him we could do our reading together at night, and even do some homework side by side. He snarled.


 


I know what he is planning. He will do the same thing he did when we went to college together. I didn’t enroll until I was 35. I was very intent on becoming formally educated. He waited about a year, then decided to follow suit, claiming it wasn’t healthy for one-half of a team to have a life alerting experience without the other participating. If you aren’t careful, a couple can grow apart when individual growth upsets the balance between them. I didn’t agree totally, but I understood his theory, and it’s nice to think your spouse wants to share in an experience that is meaningful to you. Therefore, he enrolled – and began taking some of the same BA classes I was in. As I poured through the readings and assignments, he would maybe glance at the book.   He is a good faker – but beyond that – he has a quick mind, like one of those computers in futuristic movies that is programmed to teach itself. It learns on top of what it learns, like some kind of pyramid intellectual system. When we had tests, don’t ya know, he often whipped my butt (though my academic papers couldn’t be topped). His ease with making the grade through a surface attention span annoyed the dickens out of me. Finally, I refused to let him take any of the classes I was taking. He wasn’t as enthusiastic as I was about college, and even though he came in with some preliminary classes to match those I already had taken, he enrolled in fewer classes, so his progress was a bit slower. I graduated over a year before him, and then, he just discontinued. He claimed he had gotten all he wanted and needed from college. And I think that is true. He certainly learned a great deal, and doesn’t feel anything intellectually lacking in his world. And here I am, still murking around in books and academia. It isn’t that one of us is less intellectual, or smarter, or more devoted to personal growth than the other. We are just different.


 


Anyway, I suspect he will glance through the real estate books only a few times, and still end up the star student. And when he completes the course, he’ll talk to people in the business, use his instinct, and before you know it, he will be up and running, giving advice to others who by all measurable standards, should be giving advice to him. 


 


In the meantime, he will grumble, sigh, and complain because of the damn inconvenience regarding what is involved in learning the basics. But, like it or not, he’ll do what it takes. As far as I’m concerned, that’s what counts. The “doing” is vital, even though doing is often no fun. Fun lurks in the “having done”. Like dieting. Giving up food is a drag, but being thin is a pleasure. It’s all a matter of faith –  trusting you are capable of following through to create the life you desire.    


 


All journeys begin one-step at a time. At a leisurely walk, or a dead run. Regardless of speed or what shoes you are wearing, whether you pick a steep upward slope to tread, or a simple straight paved road that won’t make you break a sweat. A step, is a step, is a step.

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Busy me

Posted on July 11, 2006 by Ginny East Shaddock

It has been a busy few days. I am always having a “busy few days” it seems. Heck, I thought I left the rate-race for a causal lifestyle. But I attack “casual” with a vengeance, it seems.


 


When I got home from my residency, I spent two days preparing my daughter, Neva, for ten days at sleep away Girl Scout Horseback riding camp. This is a big thing for us. For one thing, she has never gone to camp. She has never gone anywhere that wasn’t dance oriented, so her being able to follow her own interest has special poignancy. I worried about her being away so long, sleeping in a cabin/tent and all, but she has written home and it seems, other than the fact that she had to clean the bathrooms and almost got caught sneaking around the campsite one night with her best friend, she is having a ball. The camp posts pictures on their website every night, so I get glimpses of her on horseback, on kayaks, swimming, playing games etc…. She is always cutting up, smiling, all suntanned and hanging on her best friend de jour. Makes me feel mighty happy that we are in a position to provide this experience for her.


 


The day after we dropped her off, we picked up my son from a ten-day visit in Sarasota. They’ve each gotten the summer experience of their choice. I’m still waiting for mine. Better not hold my breath.


 


Last weekend, Mark and I took a class at the Campbell Folk school. This was his fourth class. My sixth. We had signed up for “Nature’s Baskets”. This class teaches you to make baskets out of natural fibers found in the woods. We began with three wildly shaped laurel sticks. We are taught to bind them together with rattan and then we attach ribs (wood died brown using black walnuts and boiled water) which create the base so we can weave all kinds of things into the basket. I stuck with only natural items from the forest. Many people added yarn and such – but I wanted something more rustic sans manmade material. I think the end result was great – and it was fun to make something from nothing, so to speak. I wove cornhusks, huge flower leaves and dried palm fluorescents into my basket. Neat.  


 


I wasn’t much in the mood to take the class really. We signed up 5 months ago, but once the weekend presented itself, I had too much to do to be thinking of leisurely making a basket. I wanted to work on my book and spend time with my son who had been gone for ten days. But, knowing the class meant a lot to my husband, I decided to go despite alternative desires. In the end, it went by fast. Only a weekend thing. So I’m glad I kept quiet and went. Now, when I take walks, I can gather things and whip up a fun basket later. Not that I will, but I CAN. I keep telling Mark that he should start taking me on cruises to exotic places because then, we might have the occasion to get stranded on a desert island. In which case, he would really be able to appreciate this wife of his. I am unintentionally learning some pretty significant survival skills.


 


We had to miss the last few hours of our basketry class to go to the airport Sunday because we were flying into Sarasota for two days. (Tired sigh) We had some important business meetings to attend – something we were not looking forward to at all. It was nice to see my parents, but the work element was stressful. But one nice outcome is that going back for a short, abrupt trip gives us an opportunity to make direct comparisons between our old world and our new one. The fact is, Sarasota feels crowded and commercial to us– rather ugly- by comparison to Blue Ridge where there is no traffic or over-stressed people, and where nature abounds at every turn. We drove by our old house and marveled at how dismal the neighborhood looked with all the cars parked outside and houses on top of each other. Our house was lovely, but the location makes the overall effect less appealing now. Coming home to our cabin was like stepping outside from the stale, cramped quarters of a too small apartment or something. We also toured our old business, and rather than feel nostalgic, all we could see was the massive work that had to be done, and we couldn’t help but recall the stress that accompanied that work. We were mighty glad to know it is someone else’s work and stress now.  They say, “You can never go back”. That’s true. But it isn’t a problem if you never want to go back.


 


All in all, we came home with a deep appreciation for the choices we have made. Regardless of the risks, or the trouble, or the doubts and headaches, the fights or inconveniences – we would do it all again.


 


I often think about how happy I was in New York. I was young and the bustle of the cosmopolitan life had such appeal. But when I go to the city now, it’s depressing, as if too much humanity has been trapped in too small a place, and everyone is agitated and surly because of it. It affects me differently, due to my current worldview. This is not to say one place is better than another – only that one place is better than another for me at a particular time in my life. I think Sarasota was a marvelous place for me for many years, but I matured or evolved or whatever you want to call it, and now I need nature and solitude and simplicity. These things feed me what I need so I can accomplish what I need to accomplish now. I can’t define what I need to accomplish now, at least not in words, but it is a feeling. Somehow, I know I am where I am supposed to be. It isn’t perfect. It isn’t even always satisfying. But it feels right.


 


So – I am home at last. We’ve attended to the necessary business of living – grueling as it is on occasion.  I have a few days to focus intently on my homework now before my daughter gets home from camp. I’m filled with a new sense of urgency and drive regarding my current literary project. I guess I’ve been hit with a rush of confidence and I want to ride that wave while I can.  I will immerse myself in writing for the next few days while it feels as if I can (and soon will) conquer the world.


 


My husband began real estate school tonight. He drives 1 ½ hours, three days a week, to attend a class – he will continue to do so for the next six weeks. He doesn’t know exactly where this endeavor will take him, but it will allow him to list our properties to sell them  himself in Sept. ( a good financial move) and then . . . who knows. I admire that he is moving forward into something new – open to new possibilities without preconceived notions or expectations – and let’s be honest – I’m looking forward to the nights alone to get some homework done without guilt.  It will be hard work for him, but nevertheless I sense an interesting turn coming up on our life path. . .


 


I must go. I keep talking about all the work I have to do, yet all I seem able to force out of myself is a bit of blogging. All talk and no action makes Ginny a dull girl. Can’t have that.


 


P.S. Mark has the camera tonight, so I can’t attach a picture of my basket to this entry – but I will tomorrow. Gotta show off the few things I do actually accomplish. Gotta keep up pretenses that I’m productive, ya know.  


 

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A clean Homecoming

Posted on July 7, 2006 by Ginny East Shaddock

Getting away is always nice. A new environment gives you a new perspective on life, and being absent makes you appreciate home. Which is why, when I do come home, I want to find things the way I left them, as if life stood still for the term I was away. I don’t think it is too much to ask to have everyone frozen in hyperspace in my absence, just so I don’t miss anything important, do you?


 


Unfortunately, my family just won’t comply, and every time I go away, I return to find out they dared continue living without me. Not only do they live without me, but they survive quite well, thank you. Bums me out.


 


When I came home from ten days in Boston, I was greeted by a very alluring young woman, not the geeky 9 year old I know and love. Mark took Neva to get a haircut in my absence. They chopped off 6 inches and had it all layered and styled. She looks totally glamorous. The braids are gone, and now she has this breck-girl doo. The fact that I have been trying to get Neva to cut her hair for months and months is besides the point. Why was it so easy for him to make a suggestion and her to jump at it, when I’ve begged and begged and only been refused? I get rolled eyes when I suggest a new hairstyle, not an enthuasiastic hug. The power of a man’s compliment to a woman regarding her looks (no matter how old she is) is daunting.


 


I guess the glamorous hair was just the hor derve, because they then went and had her ears pierced too. Of course, I had her ears pierced when she was six, so it is a given that I would approve the act, but back then, Neva wasn’t much interested. Since she never wore earrings, the holes grew back. Now, she is the one who wants pierced ears so this time, she is ready, going out of her way to clean them three times a day. That’s great, but still seeing her with dazzling diamonds in her ears was a bit of a shock. My daughter grew up about ten years in ten days. Hey – maybe I am the one who was frozen in hyperspace.  


 


Then, there was the shock of my husband’s grooming to contend with. He went and cut off his beard and had his hair cut really short. I like him scruffy – this dapper guy just isn’t my casual, rough and tumble spouse. Kissing him at the airport was like kissing a smooth apple, rather than a fuzzy peach. Hated that. He must have noticed my disappointment, because he was quick to explain that all the sawdust he is creating as he fine-sands the logs in the house is driving him crazy. It gets in his ears and every crevice, making him itch in the summer heat. He says his boggers are like blocks of wood (sorry – that’s gross, but I’m just repeating his commentary). So, what can I say to that? “I don’t care, keep the beard because my personal preference is more important than your comfort and well-being?” Ummm…. I think not.


 


I just said, “It’s nice to see a new look for a change. . . you big apple-face.” . . . Ha. Naw, I didn’t add the apple face part – that would be mean. But I avoided kissing him much, and I noticed he started growing it back this morning. Ha. Men are like Pavlov’s dogs and I confess I’m manipulative when it comes to important things like maintenance of the George Clooney unshaven look.  Gotta watch these things, or the next thing ya know, he will be wearing suits and I’ll have to leave him for some guy with true style (like the fellows at the diner that wear a torn sweatshirt and baseball cap as they wolf down their bacon-cheeseburgers.)


 


The first thing we did when we got home was drive to the house so I could witness the evolution (change) that occurred there too. The graders came and finished off our driveway and they pulled out about a thousand trees between the house and the creek to provide a fantastic view. It is amazing. But I stood there feeling badly that I missed it. I like to watch the small increments of change taking place each day – not be broadsided by drastic improvement in one fell swoop. The house is growing more impressive each day. I can’t imagine living there – unless I was the live-in maid or something. Ha. As much as it is out of my comfort zone – I’m thinking I will adapt and feel right at home faster than I expect.


 


April seemed taller, almost as tall as her mother, Dixie. And she let me pet her and take her for a lead immediately. Terrific. The horses were well fed, the bunnies healthy, the dogs had been bathed. Wow.  Denver had cleaned the cabin, Mark had put clean sheets on our bed – all was in order. It made me feel a bit disposable. Glum.


 


Then – I went downstairs to throw some laundry in. An AVALENCH of laundry awaited me. Every towel in the house (from bathing those dogs) was in a sour, heaped mess on the floor. Every single pair of jeans, shorts, underwear, and what have you of Mark’s was there covered in sawdust and mud. Neva complained that she had been sleeping naked for two nights because she hadn’t a single nightie clean – she already wore the others several times over. The sheets that Mark so graciously took off the bed were lumped there for me to clean (which made the fresh bed a bit less impressive, all things considered). There were dishtowels, washcloths, clothing, and all kinds of fabric stuff awaiting my attention like a mountain of soiled evidence that life went on without me – but in a messy way.


 


I stood there, shocked at the heaps of stuff that no one bothered to clean. I said, “What, it never occurred to any of you to put a load of wash in, even once?”


Denver rolled her eyes and said, “Like I didn’t have enough to do while you were gone, doing dishes and making sure Neva got a bath and feeding the horses when dad was busy? Being the mom sucks. I’m really glad you’re home.”  


 


Smile.


 


I’m glad to be home too. For two days I’ve been celebrating . . . with tide and bleach! By the time Mark’s beard grows back, I might even be caught up.

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Residency reservations

Posted on July 6, 2006 by Ginny East Shaddock

Life’s been busy. As such, I have more to write about than ever – but less time to do so. Ah, there’s the rub. But a blog only provides space for an inkling of information anyway, small smatterings of commentary that barely scratch the surface of a full, evolving life. I always feel somewhat guilty – as if not accounting for chunks of living will leave readers confused in the wake, incapable of understanding of my motivations for action – since what they see is nothing but a Swiss cheese version of what goes on. Well – sometimes, a small dose of something (removed) is far more satisfying than a full frontal encounter, so perhaps my sketchy reports serve to make me more interesting.


 


Anyway – sorry for everything I don’t share. They say writing is an act of making choices.  The choices we make have a significant impact on how a reader perceives our story. I assume that theory can be applied here – my blog is sort of a tale of what goes on in the heart of Ginny. I will strive to make good choices and hit key points so it will leave a resonance behind.


 


Considering that – today, I want to talk about my MFA residency experience.


 


When I went to Boston for my first term, a year ago, I was anxious. I spent most of the time getting acquainted with the process of this manner of literary education – it was all very alien to me. I was trying to guess how all the information would all fall into place and, considering I thought of myself as a dancer first, I felt academically challenged. Almost as if I’d bitten off more than my hunger for learning could digest. But I was excited to be participating in such a serious writing endeavor – even if I was a bit overwhelmed.


 


My second term, I was anxious as well. But this time, it was frustration that fueled me – I was looking for concrete answers regarding what constitutes literary merit, and I wanted proof that I was improving. I wasn’t happy with the loose, “everything has merit – its art” attitude. I wanted to approach writing like dance – technical proficiency as the path to artistic freedom. (And I believe still, theoretically, technical proficiency is important). I wanted rules to follow, and measurable results. I expected more from my teachers than they were willing to give. Actually – I wanted more than they had the capacity to give, considering the nature of the beast. I was also wrestling with an avalanche of emotional issues (separation pains, identity crisis, self-doubt – just to name a few) which did not put me the mood to roll with the literary punches. Made me an annoying student, I think.


 


Now – I’ve gone to Lesley for my third term. Different story. I wasn’t anxious. In fact, if anything, I wasn’t in the mood to go – other things were demanding my emotional energy and I wasn’t up for another challenge of any sort. But, I dragged myself to the residency thinking it might just be a one-year slump. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a break from school – all the reading and writing wears you down.


 


But as expected, the residency pumped me up, helping me redefine my artistic perspective and it served to help me gain a deeper understanding of the process of learning to write. I’ve finally accepted that there are no concrete answers and no professor can pinpoint what elements are necessary, or what techniques can be honed to create a piece that constitutes literary merit. It is just something you feel – like jazz music. Someone once asked Benny Goodman what jazz was, and he answered, “If you gotta ask, you ain’t got it.” I think that applies to literary writing too.    


 


But, while definitions are fleeting, I believe that the combination of readings, seminars, exercises, workshops and critical annotations combine to leave an impact that takes the place of the more linear learning approach one uses to study other things, like law . . . or dance. While no one thing seems to provide answers you can put into words, I think the answers we seek are absorbed and processed with a silent poignancy. We student’s don’t realize we are learning, but we are – and as result, we’re impeccably changed as readers and writers.   


 


I felt a deeper understanding in all of the classes this time. I was less impressed for surface reasons, and at the same time, more impressed for deeper reasons, when guest authors did their readings. I also believe I had more insight to offer my peers in the workshop process (and several teachers and students thanked me for my contributions, so I don’t think I am off in this estimation). All in all, I felt like a writer – a potentially good writer, for the first time ever.


 


This does not mean that I didn’t wrestle with my normal bout of insecurity or frustration. Unfortunately, academia has a way of bringing me to my knees. I have childhood baggage to thank for that.


 


I am very appreciative of my current mentor. She is a strongly opinionated, intimidating, black intellectual – as a writer she has received critical acclaim and won several literary awards for her book, “The Good Negress.”  She tends to write about social issues and black heritage. She is also a very focused teacher, which is why I campaigned to get her assigned as my mentor. A few of my friends asked whom I was working with and when I told them, they grimaced and said, “Aren’t you intimidated? I’d be scared to death to work with her.”


 


But I am ultimately comfortable with A.J. I am drawn to anyone with passion for what they believe, and she is swamped in it. And I like her as a person too. She says funny things, like when she requests manuscripts she demands they are printed on two sides of the page. Even though it is against traditional format she says she likes it her way . . . for the trees . (Environmentally conscious? We will get along fine.)
 
She saw me crossing campus to attend a seminar and I held the door for her because her hands were full of papers. She asked me where I was going. I said,
“To the seminar, Short Story as Portraiture.” 
She made a face and said, “Yea . . . don’t ever do that.”


 


Ha. I knew it was not an insult to the teacher giving that particular seminar, but more that she doesn’t feel portraiture serves as soul purpose for a story. It doesn’t matter if I agree or not, – I just love that she feels strongly about her art and has her own truths and she is not afraid to voice them to her students.


 


For lots of reasons, I really like her.


 


But one thing occurred that shook me this residency. (There is always something.) A huge part of the learning process, at least half of our time in residency is devoted to it, is workshopping our pieces – stories or novel excerpts the students have written. We are divided into large and small groups of 8 and 4 respectively, and in these groups, assisted by our mentors, each piece is given one to 1 ½ hours of attention. We discuss writing techniques, storyline, and how we, as readers,  perceive the work. Discussion ensues in an attempt to give the author insight and to help define ways to improve the work. It is a very important element to developing your craft.


 


In our large workshop, a great deal of time was spent on the first manuscript – a piece that had some evident technical writing flaws as well as some character issues. A.J. seemed to use this piece as a prime example for teaching us some major concepts, and as such, we spent a great deal of time on it. My piece was to be workshopped next, and because of time management (or lack of time management), we only had 25 minutes to spend on my story – the story about the tree. Because it was a theme-oriented piece (Derrick’s View isn’t about a tree at all, but about how artistic individuals see the world differently from those who see things more literally) the workshop was a bit “off”. The students wanted to take the story literally and struggled to understand what I was attempting to say. They thought the man was crazy until the end. I pointed out that their perceptions about the piece were exactly what I intended – that I was very deliberate in setting every line – I wanted to send a message that was not literal – more subtle. As such, since I was successful at accomplishing what I wanted to do, and since this wasn’t satisfying to the reader, then the piece must be a failure. A.J. hated this attitude. She said there are no failures – but I think if your concept sucks, that can be considered a flop, don’t you?


 


She then said, “The problem with you is you have good writing disease. You are such a good writer that it hides all the deeper problems underneath. People don’t see what is wrong when they read your work.”


 


Now this was difficult for me to wrap my mind around. On the one hand, my mentor was saying I am a very good writer – I’ve been dying for someone, anyone who knows what they are looking at, to say that particular thing to me. On the other hand, her comment implies there are deeper issues – problems – in my work. I asked her to define what those deeper problems are.
She said, “It is different for every story, there are never clear cut issues.”


 


I asked how my good writing hid my flaws, and I wanted to know if everyone knew there were problems or if it was something only a more sophisticated reader would notice. She couldn’t really answer me. She just kept saying my problem was I had “good-writer-itus.”


 


That night at dinner one of my workshop peers said, “I think you were jipped today. I bet we return to your piece tomorrow because we really didn’t discuss it all that much. You deserve time.”
 I told her I didn’t mind that we breezed over the story- but personally, I did feel as if the story lacked something, for why else would the teacher chose notl to talk much about it?

The next few days, we continued to workshop pieces, and A.J. had plenty to say about everyone’s work. But then, as we came to the conclusion of the small workshops, she skipped me and took students out of the set order. And don’t you know that time was mismanaged again and we ended up with only 20 minutes left with two pieces left to critique. One was a two-paragraph submission from a senior, and the other was my story, Impressions,– some 7 pages. Hummmm……… Since 20 minutes isn’t long enough to critique anything in depth, I volunteered to be skipped. I said, ” I can learn from all the conversation, lets just go on with Diane’s work.” And we did.


 


A.J. concluded the session by saying, “I’m taking you up on your offer to skip you because your story is not a part of your thesis anyway (Remember, I am writing my dance book for my thesis) and I only like to work on pieces that a student is truly invested in.”


 


This bothered me. For one thing, I wasn’t really workshopped at all this residency, and I know that is vital to improving. This is silence, and as I made clear before, silence unnerves me.  For another, I didn’t like the idea that my mentor thought I wasn’t invested in my work.


 


The next day, we had a private meeting to prepare my 6 months learning contract . I pointed out to her that I sent in a story rather than a book submission because my previous mentors suggested I do so,  I was disappointed that my work was being dismissed. Heck, I was following professional recommendations – had she asked for portions of my book, I’d have sent it . I did e-mail her in advance to discuss my submission.

I also felt that whatever problems I have in my writing are probably across the board, and they would reveal themselves in a short story or my book. As such, I felt it was important to review my work no mater what I sent in, and what I learn from any workshop could be applied to my bigger project. (And heck, I might want some short stories to send to literary competitions or something so discussing them would help me a great deal.) I made it clear that I didn’t want to just have teachers hold my hand and help me doctor a single project so I graduate with a passable book. Heck with writing a book at school. I want an MFA to learn to write better. I know some MFA’s discourage book projects all together with the belief that more is learned from writing short stories. If that’s true, my submitting stories is an imporatant learning opportunity – which is why I do it.


 
Then I told her that just because I wrote a short story during the two-week break it  and didn’t labor over it for months, didn’t mean I wasn’t invested in the piece. Actually, I am rather prolific and I can write a story about anything with a moments notice. It doesn’t mean I don’t struggle to write the story well. It is just my process. I don’t have to labor over creating a story – they just come to me – but developing the idea once it is set down is my struggle.


 


She pretty much ignored everything I said. She said, “Are you aware that the people in this program spend months on the pieces they send, and that in many cases, they have worked with other teachers on it too?”


 


I pointed out that that was a bit confusing, considering the pieces had some obvious flaws, everything from week characterization to poor sentence construction. The thing is, I can see their flaws like huge gaping smudges on a paper. My flaws, however, are hard for me to see, and I want help with that. I feel blind to my own weaknesses and this makes me feel horrible. Inadequate. I can’t fix what I don’t see.


 


She said, “I bet it drives you crazy to read all these manuscripts where many students can’t even construct a sentence well – when they are missing basic fiction elements. You mastered that stuff ages ago. ”


 


I agreed that it did perplex me. Again, I pointed out that I wanted help to see the “serious” problems underscoring my good writing, and as things were going, I felt blind – frustrated. And if I was such a good writer, why didn’t I get into this program on the first try? Why were these other writers with basic writing skills lacking, welcomed so warmly. What did they have that I didn’t have?


She said, “That is a good question to ask.”


 


I was thinking, what does she mean? That it is a good question to ask myself, or a good question for the staff to ask the powers that be? I kept trying to reroute the conversation to what elements my work might be lacking – the stuff that left a more poignant resonance behind. But we never seemed to talk about that. The thing is, I am left feeling like something is wrong with my work – but no one wants to tell me what that is.


 


She asked me to send her my entire book – rewritten in it’s original format (I told her I wrote it all in 1st person, but I was in the process of changing it back again and adding other elements – flashbacks and a serious of conversations with a therapist to make it stronger.)
 
She said, “Fix it and sent it to me.” – She  would sit on it awhile. Then, she told me to finish the entire story immediately afterwards (That is at least 150 more pages in the next two months), because without a finished product, we can’t begin the revision process (which is her specialty).
I said, “Will do” . . . but I was shitting bricks at the thought.


 


In the end, I don’t know what I think or how I feel about my meeting or the residency experience.

A.J. asked me on the last day, “What have you learned from our time together.”


 


I said, “Well, most of what we discussed about the other writers work in workshop is stuff that doesn’t apply to me. I don’t do the things they are doing wrong. So I guess, what I have learned is that I have good instincts, even if I don’t know what I’m doing.”


 


She smiled and said, “That’s good.”


 


Is it? Is it good to leave only knowing you were on the right path by coincidence or accident? With no new applicable knowledge? I’m not sure.


 


So, I didn’t get workshopped. I was told I’m a good writer and that is my problem. I don’t know what that means and as you can imagine, it drives me crazy.


 


And as result, I wrote my little blog about how I feel that what people don’t say is so much more difficult to process than what they do say.  I guess it is hard to understand where I’m coming from, and yet, when you are someone who hangs desperately to evidence of faith or understanding, silence is frustrating.


 


So, now I am buried in my book. I’m determined to finish this sucker and get it out of my head and into my professor’s hands. Let her wade through all that good writing to discover the deeper problems underneath and point them out so I can fix them. Or not.  I feel on fire now. Determined to get finished with school and move on to less obscure elements regarding fiction. This literary world is like trying to contain sand in a colander.  Since I’ve come to the conclusion that there are no answers here, I want to stop seeking them altogether and just write what I want without second-guessing myself at every turn.


 


 I feel, sometimes, like a good writer – maybe so good that I was skipped because my work wasn’t flawed enough to require intense attention. And there are no obvious weaknesses to use as a springboard for talking about technique with the group. My work is too close to what we are striving to do so it doesn’t demand the reflection every other person’s work in the program is getting. Perhaps, I am harder to teach because I am advanced.


 


But I also feel, sometimes, like a horrible writer. Maybe so horrible that I was skipped because my work has so little merit that it isn’t worth any attention at all. It might be so filled with weaknesses that a teacher doesn’t know where to begin. So they ignore it all together.  I am impossible to teach because I am so far from what is accceptable in the literary world that it is easier to dismiss me altogether.


 


That’s it. I feel DISMISSED. And this is impossible to comprehend in an MFA that is designed to help everyone meet their own potential. 


 


I swing between these two drastic poles – ultra confident – ultra intimidated.  


 


Art is painful. Writing is painful. And doing so without any validation that you are on the right course (or wrong) is painful.


 


This has been a long letter, and I have TONS work to do. I will write about something more fun next time. Adieu.

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Still powerless

Posted on June 30, 2006 by Ginny East Shaddock

Still no power for my laptop.  Sucks to be me.
What is worse about all this is that I have some insightful things to
share. And some funny things.  I guess you could say I’ve
rediscovered my sense of humor these past few months – something long
overdue.

I have been attending readings, seminars and workshops. I’ve learned
new things – about myself and my writing. But one thing I have come to
realize is that the most poignant things we discover are hidden in the
most subtle places. It is not what I’m told that makes huge
impressions, but what I am not told – what can not be put into words.
Silence says so much. Absense of commentary says so much. Quiet is an
answer.  Sometimes, when people are not speaking to me at all, it
feels as if they are screaming.
I guess what that boils down to is: Most of what I gather is through
desperate self reflection. Sometimes that is all you have to go on.

Anyway – I deeply regret that I have not had the chance to bring my
blog friends along on this journey. I’ve blogged in my head – at night
when I lay in bed recapping the day – in classes when there is a lull
and I fade into this world of words that is always capturing a moment
in voice – in the shower, when walking through the campus – all the
time.

I am at the library killing time while my roomate looks something up.  Ah – she is done.
I will fill her ear with all the juicy details you won’t be privvy to due to a technical error as we walk to our hotel. 
Such is circumstance. Take it as you may.
 

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