Day 2: Peach & James Baldwin

Today I found myself waking up to the idea of blogging; what to blog next, how will this look like at the end of 30 days, how will I be able to update this blog while I'm away in rural southern Missouri :)

The day went on as it usually does, be at work by 6 am, take the kiddos to school by 8 am (I work in a foster home), clean the house till noon and off I was, to my home starring at my computer in the face.

For sometime I wonder in my head about different things nothing really happening until I came upon a thought... "if you were asked to write a story, a story about anything with no parameters, could you do it?"

I have a roommate of mine who looks at this feat with great angst; however, you give him a topic and then start defining that topic again, again and again... with each passing set of rules or guidelines he will be able to write you a story.

But as I pondered that question in my head, I suddenly had a story going. A story about two kings, one journey and a bet with their kingdoms in the balance... when I finish it I will think about posting it ;)

But as for today's work on my memoir, it is on the the chapters titled: "Peach" and "James Baldwin".

The challenge in "Peach" is the old saying that if you eat enough peaches, you will become a peach. This can be true in terms of reading and writing. The more that you read great author's; their thoughts, their words, their passionate intensity through the pages, the more likely you are to write as an author. So, I was challenged to come up with a list of 10 memoirs that I would like to read. Some the same, some from different perspectives on the world, but all meant in one purpose to help oneself write better and to challenge yourself to look at the world through someone else's view.

I don't have a list of ten memoirs that I have at the top of my head, but I can think of one:

Second Nature: A Gardener's Education by Michael Pollan

I want to read this book because I love the land, I love the idea of growing my own food, working my own fields, walking through my own orchards and smelling the sweetness of fruit ready and ripe for harvest.

I love the idea of having a small farm someday, where the work is hard but good and everything that you need is just there at arms length... it might be a pipe dream, but in my experience, people who work the land, live off the land, are some of the most grounded and generous individuals that you would have the pleasure of meeting.

Seeing how I haven't completed the first assignment (I will work on this list and get back to you on it) I thought I would read the next chapter, titled "James Baldwin", and see what challenges it would have to offer and it was simply this: "Tell me of a great book that you have read. Ultimately, writing won't go far if you have never fallen in love with a book, an author, even the smell of paper, the sweet anticipation of opening to page one and beginning. In falling in love we realize we are not separate... that the river of words is part of us."

The preface of all this is a short story from a writer named James Baldwin, asked to read this story out loud, you get the sense of the intensity of what the man is telling. How he is not trying to please anyone anymore, but more, he is looking into the face of his maker and we happen to overhear the conversation. Natalie Goldberg describes reading this passage and immediately going to a local bookstore and picking up a several copies of Mr. Baldwin's fiction... and how, in a retirement complex in Florida helping her Grandmother recover from a hurricane, she fell in love with the books of James Baldwin...

The earliest memories that I have of books is sitting down in grade school recess and being able to read those 'illustrated children's classics' books in a span of about an hour. I would try to read one everyday if I could; reading stories like Ivanhoe, Robin Hood, Moby Dick, Robin Cursoe and Great Expectations. But these aren't the books that I fell in love with.

My Mother, kept a huge library of christian books in her basement, I remember spending hours helping her catalogue these books by type, author and alphabetic name. But there was one book that I found amongst all these that caught my intention, it was a fictional story of adventure, shipwreck and redemption.

For the life of me I cant remember what it was titled or who the author is, but I can tell you the story by heart, because I read that book over and over and over again. It was about three boys that all went to sea together, when their ship is hit by a sudden storm, they are all thrown overboard and find themselves alive, but marooned on a desert island. They go exploring and end up finding ways to survive on this little island, but not much time passes when one child is suddenly kidnapped by pirates and about to be sold to local natives before he is helped to escape by a beautiful native princess and an old pirate who has had enough of his way of life...

I could go on to tell you the rest story... but then that would be spoiling an entirely good book that took me through many a rainy afternoon.

Tomorrow's post, "Again".

See you there :)

-Eric Alan