Fragments From Floyd

Well, turkeysquat. I had a full head of steam, replying to Melinama's email request for more talk about Hindman. She identified with my approach-avoidance, and I was weighing in with both fists, telling her as how I didn't think the topic would find a very broad interest among Fragments readers. And Dear Wife distracted me from my epistle; when I went back to yahoo mail, the message had disappeared. So, if I have to type the blame thing again, you're gonna git an earful whether you want it or not. So just sit down and hursh.

(I notice it is much easier to slip into localisms after being with a crowd of enlightened persons from the hills who remain true to their native tongue. I haven't picked up the nice white light ((no E in the sound at all, only the long drawling I sound)) from Rita or Silas or others; but it wouldn't have taken long.)

Melinama particularly called out this passage from the other day's Fragment:

"It was much as I had expected it as far as the tension I had anticipated between wanting to join in and wanting to stay in my own space; between wanting to be family and feeling like an intruding visitor."

I don't think most people could tell it in settings like the writers workshop, but I dread sitting through conversations that bore me, ignore me, or make me talk when I'd rather listen or leave. By Thursday, I found myself less able to chitchat, less prone to seek out a little cluster of folks before breakfast. After the Thursday night program, though I tried--joining folks on the front porch, feeling distant, leaving going back to my room, coming back down to try again--I was burned out. I felt alienated. I got it in my head that those who had seemed to have enjoyed me company were as tired of me as I was--not of them, but of the social obligations that made us look so hard for common ground. I experienced a mild paranoia born of sheer heat exhaustion, small talk burn out, and a distance from my own thoughts I am so used to on Goose Creek.

And far too few of those thoughts left my head, I realized. The week was in that way unsatisfying and disappointing. I listened, formally during daily programs, informally at meals and elsewhere, to what others had written. There was some wonderful, inspiring stuff. I knew them better having heard their voice through their writing. Not one written word of mine saw the light of day. No one heard about my weblog, my dog, our place in Floyd and our lives here. Only a very few saw a few of my photographs or heard of the importance of photography to my creative life. I remained invisible for a week when I had hoped to have a say, at least a little. Other than insipid journal notes, I came home from Hindman with three paragraphs of new writing. That's all. And I am partly to blame, and partly can claim ignorance. There were slots for participants to read each day from 4 til 5:15. I didn't know about this signup sheet until all the slots were filled. And I did not attend any of them. I suppose, without consciously acknowledging it or even thinking about it til now, this was my way of keeping my distance if I couldn't bridge it through the voice of my writing, openly, publicly.

But make no mistake about it: for someone who aspires to know better both his purpose as a writer and his roots as an Appalachian writer, Hindman was about as good as it's gonna get. And I have promised myself this: I WILL go back next year IF I am able to produce a 'significant' manuscript before next summer. I will expect to be able to have excellent one-on-one attention toward getting it completed and published. And secondly, I will get my name on that signup sheet before I unpack the car on day one.

Next year, too, I will have my bearings by the first hour; I'll start off having family ties I had to nurture this time, with so much effort and energy. And I'll be a year older and more focused--at least the first part of that is incontrovertibly true.