In late January, I traveled to West Texas, to Terlingua, at the invitation of an innkeeper who offers space to writers and artists. As these things often do, the entire experience came together through a delicate mix of resolve and serendipity. A few weeks earlier I had been camping out at her coffeeshop, working after hours on a writing project, when she happened by. We chatted for a few moments and I told her about my long affair with the work and the deadlines I had to face down. She invited me to stay and I just about wept.
Signs, necessary signs, tend to appear out in the Big Bend area. Last summer, I traveled to Marfa for a six-week writer’s residency through the Lannan Foundation. At the end of my stay, I was scheduled to deliver a presentation at the Marfa Book Co. Even though I had the basic outline down, I couldn’t quite get ahold of the soul of the story and I wasn’t going to find it at the desk. With no plan other than to go on a long hike, I drove out to Big Bend National Park and sometime before the trail returned me to the beginning, I heard it.
For me, writing is about sound. The first words come to me like a beat, one often triggered by activity or motion–hiking, running, cooking, driving, etc. Each time I returned to the Big Bend area I heard the words I needed. Maybe it’s the long drives or the long hikes or that I thrive in harsh territory.
A few weeks later I returned as her guest. One late afternoon, I was deep into a new path when I began to hear words that seemed like the beginning of a postcard to someone who had been with me days before but had since left.
I wrote them all down but stalled at the ending. There is no story without a good ending and I never begin writing without an ending in mind. After some hesitation, I wrote the obvious ending, the only one I could imagine: you were meant to walk. It was my default to remain in motion, and the words had the feel of resignation. Rather than invoking the experience with another, I was writing a condemnation–of myself. I was meant to walk away, move on, always leave. I never sent the postcard.
At the end of April, I woke from a dead sleep with my ending. And that’s when I realized that what I had named “sound” was intuition and the motion was an exercise in transcending chatter and doubt to reach the sound.
A few days later I returned to Marfa and on my first night back, Tim Johnson, a brilliant and gracious writer and friend and co-owner of Marfa Book Co invited me to read a piece as part of their 15 seconds with a poet series.
Here is the postcard with the ending it, and I, needed.
Image may be NSFW.
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Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Big Bend, desert, Marfa, postcards from desert, Terlingua, Texas, writing Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
