As a frustrated writer of semi-biographical fiction oft reality merges with dreams and the distortion of long past memories. It has been said that each time we recall a memory that wonderful miracle of our organic brains changes the memory slightly. So when recalling pleasant or terrible memories over and over we alter the record itself. With most of my years of written diaries long gone, I now wonder if the recollection of the past is truth or fiction or a blend of truth and desire.
It was a pleasant decision to return to the island to await the arrival of spring. In full arrival in my southern home, here still a month away despite the arrival and passing of the spring solstice. We had a bright white clean snowfall overnight here on the "summer" side of this island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. My Mary keeps me warm and well fed as I continue to recover from my "traveller's" flu. She is off to work this morning. Having no car, she was glad for a ride on the snow and ice covered roads where she would normally walk several miles, in any weather. My tough Irish girl.
This blog is supposed to be my spot to continue the outline for a combination of works, including "Fishing with my son", "Spring Peepers", and "River Thoughts".
So many interesting events here on PEI over the past 4 years are forcing me to reconsider the fabric and direction of what will be my first published manuscript. It is time to modify the angst of business loss (and success) and the pangs of loves lost and gained into a more joyous expression of a really wonderful life. It has been said that we must embrace our pains and losses as much as we celebrate our joys and triumphs. This is truly difficult even for the most optimistic or pious person.
So the new challenge over the next few months are to integrate the experiences of youth, the existing short stories and essays, as well as my recent Appalachian and Island lives into a unified work.
My son has suggested that I simply create a collection of short stories including semi-biographical and fictional materials that exist on-line. There are also a series of "Jessica" stories that is a fictional account of a fishing trip in Western Pennsylvania where the protagonist meets and marries a young mountain girl. She is the daughter of a handicapped retired railroad worker, disabled due to asbestos exposure.
During my time in Juniata County recently I met a young red-head named Jessica. My host there worked for the Norfolk-Southern railroad. Either prophesy or just an odd coincidence, both events enriched my own concept of the story-right down to the trout-filled creek, a pretty young lady, and my time with her , albeit short along Turkey Ridge.
Thus you can see how reality and fiction blur in the memory. Actual events unfold as if already written in the fabric of space time. Such is the story of my life, and those lives of my yet unborn fictional souls.
The Arizona story is a bit hard to integrate into the other sections. That time of much success with my then young wife among the orange groves and palms remains difficult for me to fictionalize. But the journalistic phase much yield to a more creative one, without a loss of meaning-still grounded in some reality. It is time to step outside my own experience and finally become a writer.
15 years ago
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