Recollection, emotion, order

“Not everyone realizes that to write a really good piece of journalism is at least as demanding intellectually as the achievement of any scholar. This is particularly true when we recollect that it has to be written on the spot, to order, and that it must create an immediate effect, even though it is produced under completely different conditions from that of scholarly research. It is generally overlooked that a journalist’s actual responsibility is far greater than the scholar’s.”
- Max Weber

"We journalists are supposed to move on. Most of the time, like insatiable voyeurs, we do. But once a decade or so, we get undone, as if in love, and our subject has its revenge, turning the tables and refusing to let us be."
- Roger Cohen

Deserving

The shell caught my eye the first time I came out of the water this morning. I should've picked it up then, but we'd already grabbed my seashore loot.

You see, every time I go to the beach, I grab a shell. An old habit. To store memories. To have something to gather and hold onto. I only pick up the one that catches my eye. It doesn't matter if they're damaged. I just know.

You see, I live less than 10 minutes from the beach, but don't get there as often as I should. Spending time on the water rejuvinates me. I like to remember that. This weekend brought me two shells.

I saw this one I left behind in the heavy, wet sand and kept walking. Minutes later, children came hunting with their excitement and giggles. I'd like to think they found that shell.

The second time I came out of the water, chest heaving from a full-out ocean sprint, I glanced down to see if it was there. It wasn't. And that made me a little sad. But I'd like to think they found that shell. And that it made them happy.


Photo by Elena Segatini from Corbis

The man and the promised land

It started about four months ago. I made the 40-minute drive to Espanola in rural Flagler County and approached the Reverend about doing a story on his small, insular world. He said yes. But it wasn’t always that easy.

We’d actually met for the first time in early 2008 for a story I was working on, on the restoration of a former black burial ground that his Masonic Lodge owned. He brushed me off then, but I kept at it, showing up at related community meetings until he agreed to talk.

Since then, we’ve had a strange kind of friendship/regard. For me, he’s the well-meaning, respected sage with a soft heart. To him, I’m the pretty wordsmith, tough and wise beyond her years. (I know because he told me.)

He spent hours these past few months walking me through the county’s oldest community, introducing me to the town’s elders and restless young, setting up interviews, letting us into his church to observe and shoot. He was my seasoned guide through a world he’s held together for more than half a century.

Without him as my gatekeeper, there would’ve been no access, no story. It became about much more than the area’s history or segregation, change or development. It became out him. A selfless man at Espanola’s heart.

In between my varying shifts and planned and unexpected daily stories, I found myself out in Espanola at the Reverend’s, interviewing at his dining room table, trekking through bush and historic sites nearby.

Intimidated by the sheer amount of information and finding an authentic way to tell the story, it took me weeks to finally give it birth. And another few days to go through edits.

At its end, I felt lighter. And in its publishing I felt like I had been part of something great, had been invited to get to know and share something special with the world by a very special man.

He called me today to thank me and I thanked him for letting me tell his story and the story of Espanola. For the first time, I was truly happy with what I’d done and the words I’d written. Because I’d touched someone else. I’d touched him. And I’d made him happy. That’s always the best part of the job.

It started about four months ago. And it ran Sunday. But it doesn’t end there. He will never forget. And neither will I.

Photo by Sean McNeil from The News-Journal

Searching the water

I grab onto the weathered branch of the tree trunk rising up from the water and haul myself into the space where three branches meet. Out here on the edge of the creek, it has long shed its leaves and things, replaced by flaky algae, a dry yet sturdy sentinel to the days.

It's hot today, Florida summer, 90-degree hot, but a breeze blows off the dark water and through wild hair. I sit there in the small space, knees drawn up to chin like a limber monkey, and throw my eyes across the water.

Fish ripple. A heron hesistantly wades. The current tugs inland.

I close my eyes and, for the first time in a long time, clear my mind. There is only sound. Water. Wind. Bird calls. A lion at my back.

There are certain things that a woman knows instinctively in quiet, stolen moments. That the world is so much bigger than her own, that love takes many forms, that peace can come even amid war, that everything will be OK. A woman should always trust her instincts.

Mine tell me to Be Still. To live freely. To accept what is mine. To write. To close my eyes and find the moments of sound.

Sometimes there is chaos in too much thought. And there is peace in a different kind of immersion. Find your space, search the water. Listen.

Terror firma

"Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers but to be fearless in facing them. Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain, but for the heart to conquer it. Let me not look for allies in life's battlefield but to my own strength. Let me not cave in."
- Rabindranath Tagore

Photo by Paul Souders courtesy Corbis

Momentarily misplaced

These past few weeks, maybe months, have been a seesaw at the newspaper in very much the same way it's been a seesaw for newsroom staffs across the country. I'd say the layoffs and the public's enjoyment of our near demise top the list of downers. Not, of course, counting the furloughs and frozen wages.

But it's also meant putting aside survivor's guilt, coming into work every day, continuing to find and produce the amazing stories and often the not-so-amazing stories that make the job worthwhile. And that also make the job suck.

In all honesty, it's too often hard finding the motivation. Everyone is seeking that one thing, it seems, that will keep them going. The public venom sometimes makes me wonder why I'm doing the job at all if the long hours and the meticulousness elicit so much criticism.

I found myself recently creating a file of 'thank you' cards and e-mails received from sources, readers and other reporters telling me how much my stories helped them or how much they simply enjoyed reading them. I need to remind myself at times that I'm doing something good and worthwhile.

But it's still hard coming into work and finding stories to enjoy chasing and writing. In a fit of frustration tonight, I e-mailed an old mentor of mine, whose office I used to escape to in search of ideas and inspiration before they shut the bureaus down and let him go.

"My world is filled with butterfly caterpillars, old bridges, wildflowers and bits and pieces of memories," he writes. "I do find joyful zeal in these things and while they may not be especially challenging, they are awfully good and make me glad I am alive in this time and place."

And in his poem-like prose, he reminds me that I have not lost my spirit.

"Momentarily misplaced is far more likely.
She'll find it.
She'll look askew, and anew, and she'll listen.
A newly-arrived woman's spirit cannot remain silent.
It's there. She'll see.
It'll call."

I'd like to say that my excitement returned immediately, but life is seldom that simple. I do know that his message made me smile, offered me some reassurance at the tail-end of my late night Cops shift that the tide would turn and I would find the stories, the love and the words to tell them again.

I can't ask for more than that.


By the way, the image above is entirely his, sent alongside the words.

I once was lost

"Why did you shut it down?" she asks.

I lean back in the chic lounge and study her face across the table over a leafy mojito. I see my own. And her father's. A high forehead. Her father's nose. The family cheekbones. The clan's sensitivity, imperiousness, pride etched into pursed lips and raised eyebrows. Her tongue is as heavy as my own; strength a part of her curved spine.

We are friends, she and I. Unmistakeable family. But we are inevitably friends, almost sisters. Shared blood, intellect, soul and words. Separated by both distance and time, by neither distance nor time. We have inherited the power of the pen from secret ancestors.

I take a sip from my drink. And for a long time we talk about identity and self, the public self and private self, professionalism and personalism, temptation and tact. I tell her why.

But it is not good enough. Nothing is good enough to hide the words.

I vacillate for a few more days between the delete button and inaction. Am I blocking out the world or a small piece of someone else's? Am I connecting with anyone? More importantly, am I still connecting with me? Why am I writing? Why am I afraid?

When she leaves on a plane two days later, I'm already consumed by work, the constantly buzzing scanner, the end of a draining week of emotional and physical floods. We didn't talk about those much.

It's been seven years. Before that, a lifetime. But the blood in our veins knows. Fear and resilience. And we fight the former. Welcome back, I want to tell her. And me. Welcome back.

Consideration

Thinking of shutting this space down. Or creating a new one. Or not. I don't know.

Passages

I'm sitting in the newsroom, long after the late shift is over, writing his story. I find myself re-reading the interview, immersing myself in his matter-of-fact and poignant words.

I find I want to take my time in its writing, mindful of this man I've never met to whom I must do justice. I pour all into his story, more than the day's mushrooming wildfire and the quirky accident.

I want to shake his hand, look him in the eye, sit across from him and talk about the open road and wherever it meanders, about his journey here, about his wife and her cancer.

When I leave it's late. Past 1 a.m. I already know who will accompany me on the wet ride home on empty roads. Her voice is rich and heavy like cream.

I know what you wanna say;

I see the words behind your eyes.

By the time you show me what you're hiding,

it won't be no surprise.

As the goose pimples trace their way across my limbs to the familiar guitar, the wrenching cadence of her voice, I decide that tomorrow I will seek him out after the meeting and the appointment.

I will shake his wrinkled, weathered hand. I will look him in the eye from across the lunch table and talk about his story, maybe censored tidbits of mine. In less than a week, he will be gone.

He will carry my written words with him in a bag. Maybe he will remember me. Maybe he will pretend he never told me of his pain so I could feel it, so I could tell the world.

Let me out, let me stay after the sun rises.

I want to be real to you, no more disguises.

Let me in or let me go,

it's time you tell me where you're standing, baby.

I won't go down if you say no;

just open up your mouth and say it, baby.

Speak your heart.

I know you think your Mom is the greatest

But, actually, that would be mine.

Just had to remind you again.

Speak your heart

Her music makes me happy.

4,066 words

There were two cars to be washed ahead of mine. I pulled a chair in the sparsely furnished, dank waiting room and flipped open the laptop. I refused to waste a minute idling that could be spent writing. There was a manuscript to be crafted, edited, perfected. Mine.

When he was done more than an hour later, so was I. Almost. There were a few sections to be fleshed out later on, after the errands and the evening crab legs and beers on the Halifax.

I put the final touches on it just after midnight, though I'm sure I'll find something to change tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that, until I turn it in and the professor pops it in the mail. For publishing.

For publishing. Can a story be too honest? And am I being dishonest by not putting it out into the world under my own name? I'd like to think I'm protecting more than me.

I'd like to think it's the closest to real that I've ever been.

The beautiful bookworm concedes

It feels like midnight, though the sun has just tipped its hat to darkness. For I have spent the day on this floor, working, reading, writing.

The night turns motley. Fresh beer, microwaved dinner, a tedious search for literary mags with an attitude. I'm on the 'H's and wary.

Marvin has long bowed out of asking me what's goin' on. I drift into the bathroom, carefully wash hands for no reason under scalding water. And reach for a paper towel.

And there sits the lion. And there sits the lion. I exhale a watery sigh. It must have been a long day, and I must be really tired. The beautiful bookworm concedes.

Dragon slayer

"Life is a motherfucker, living it anyway, and sometimes laughing in the process, is where humanity is won."

- Jerald Walker in Dragon Slayers

I must've been going 80 when he swerved into my lane. I'd followed him impatiently for about two miles, chugging along the interstate at 65 mph in the fast lane while he kept pace up ahead with the truck to his right. I tried not to tailgate; mostly, I succeeded.

I flashed my lights instead. He looked in his mirror and kept on going in his old blue van. And then, finally, a break between the truck and the van.

I slipped into the space in the right lane and accelerated, finally free in the Tuesday evening light. He chose then to switch lanes. I must've been going 80 when he swerved into my lane. I sat on my horn and swerved right onto the rough shoulder; he sat on his horn and kept coming.

We barely missed each other. In the rapidly expanding space between us, he followed me patiently, flashing his lights until he disappeared in the creeping dusk.

For the second time in a week on that road, I wanted to pull over and cry. I wasn't sure if I was angry or sobbing or crazy. Ears flaming, hands shaking, chest heaving, heart exploding. I turned the a/c vents toward me and let them chill me 'til I could breathe. And speak.

I sat on the living room floor tonight on the brink of a PTSD precipice that opened three years ago, that is so often aggravated by life. Because life can put one through the wringer in ways that only life can.

Professional in an industry confusing its revolution with death. Academic; exhaustion. Personal, always ever present, both weighty and light. The trick is finding emotional balance in the run; sometimes easy, mostly elusive.

It was so easy at that moment on the floor, at precipice's edge, to let go, to fall, to procrastinate, to sleep, to wake up unresolved in the morning and start again. Instead, I wrote. Productive writing.

I read a short story. Reading has this way of bringing me into contact with others' words, of coming across exactly the things I need to see or hear at the moment.

"Less time needs to be spent on dragons and more on our ability to forge swords for battle, and the skill with which we've used them."

- James Alan McPherson, as told to Jerald Walker in Dragon Slayers

Finding the words is the easy part. Following them is another story I've been trying to write for a long, long time. Do we ever quite figure it out?