Some say home is where you hang your hat. I've got a bunch of hats. It seems that whenever I visit someplace new I get a hat. When I was a big dude, buying shirts didn't make much sense because I could seldom find one that would fit me anyway. And, being a balding chap, hats hid the proof.

I've got a really cool hat from the Liberty Science Center in New Jersey. We went there the day after the power went out in New York a few years back. It was quite a caravan: my family, my in-laws, two nephews and one niece. Eleven of us total. I led the convoy out of our driveway in NE Indiana bright and early and didn't plan on stopping until we reached the Statue of Liberty; the kids wanted to see it at night. It was somewhere around Cleveland when we heard the first reports of power outages across the North East. The chipper announcers didn't seem too worried about New York; the lights should be back on by evening.

I stopped listening to the radio.

We could see the lights of Newark. But where the map said New York City should be, there was nothing but darkness. We managed to see Lady Liberty, one of two things somehow illuminated against the surrounding black. I got us close but we had to turn around and head back an hour into Jersey to find a hotel that wasn't full.

The next day everything was pretty much shut down. Parks were open and free. Mother-in-law chose the Liberty Science Center. Not free but worth the price; it housed a replica of a dinosaur named Sue.

And a gift shop full of hats. I took one home and hung it up, wondering when the lights will go out again.

About Freewriting

On Thursday, April 10, QuoinMonkey and ybonesy interviewed Natalie Goldberg, author of the recently released Old Friend from Far Away: The Practice of Writing Memoir. The interview was especially meaningful in that red Ravine originated from a friendship, and vision, developed while QM and ybonesy were in a year-long writing Intensive with Goldberg, in Taos, New Mexico.

Goldberg had just completed a book tour across several Western states when QM and ybonesy spoke with her from her Santa Fe home. They talked about the new book and about Goldberg's life as a writer and painter, friendships that sustain her, the loneliness of writing, and the most important thing she's learned from her students.



Interview with Natalie Goldberg, April 10, 2008, red Ravine

red Ravine: There’s a moving passage in Old Friend From Far Away on page 69, which I'm going to read: 

In 1977 on Morada Lane in a small adobe behind a coyote fence I taught the first writing practice group to eight Taos Women. For the last twenty years I have taught these same workshops at the Mabel Dodge Luhan House a few hundred yards farther up on Morada Lane. I joke: I have not gone a very far distance in my life.
     Students come and go. Eventually we all will die. I fear I will have forgotten to die. I’ll be standing in front of the class after everyone I know has long passed.
     “Class, get out your pens.”
     Please help me. If all of you write right now, maybe I can let go and die too. My job will be complete.

Talk about what that passage means, Natalie.

Natalie: Basically, I had this feeling one day that everybody was going to die and I was still going to have to keep teaching Writing Practice; that it was so important and so essential and people weren’t going to let me die. They were just going to keep coming and studying with me and that my books wouldn’t have given enough.

What I didn’t say actually in that chapter is that I hoped to make a book that would be like studying with me. I wanted to make this book -- the structure and the rhythm -- so that it was the closest to what it’s like to be in the classroom with me. So that someday I, too, can die. I think when we die, finally, we really completely let go. I don’t think I’d be able to completely let go unless I felt there was some record students could follow to learn this wonderful Practice.

red Ravine: Years ago, at the beginning of your adult life when you were in the midst of studying with Katagiri Roshi, you were on a path toward assuming that lineage. What caused you to move away from that path and go with writing instead?

Natalie: That’s a good question. We complain about our lives, but the truth is we usually get what we want. A lot of people say, “I wanted to write and I wanted to do this." If they really wanted it and it really burned in them, they would do it and they would figure it out. And not everybody has that.

Some people are happy taking classes, milling around with writing, and the truth is they like their lives and they like their jobs. I found that I put in time with writing. When it came down to the wire, my ass was on the line for writing. Even though I showed up all the time for Zen, when you asked me, my drive was for writing.

So it actually happened very naturally. We worry so much, What should we do, what should we do? but life also unfolds. For you (addressing QuoinMonkey), for example, you keep talking about wanting to teach Writing Practice, but we don’t know. And you've had some offers, but, finally, you’ll see if it unfolds and if it feels right for you.

You know that’s true with everybody. What we want unfolds. So I think I saw that writing was where I really put my life, my whole life. And even though I deeply, deeply loved Zen, it wasn’t in the same way, deep in the musculature of my body. I didn’t put my life on the line in the same way.

Now that I’m older I realize that I didn’t have to pick. That the two actually came together. But when you’re young you think you have to pick. When you’re young you can drive yourself crazy and think you have to pick. But look, Zen and writing, I can’t separate them. I didn’t choose one over the other. I chose both.

red Ravine: You also chose to be a writer and an artist. How do you balance those passions, and do you ever feel that you are more one than the other?

Natalie: I’m a writer. I know that. And when I’m painting a lot, I’m so in love with it. I think, Oh, I should have been a painter. But I wouldn’t be willing to do (for painting) what I’m willing to do for writing. I’ll go anywhere, face anything for writing.

Painting is my darling pleasure. And because it’s a pleasure, I don’t push myself a lot with it. Like what I said about writing and Zen, if I really look at it (painting), it’s important to me and it feeds my life and I relax with it. I relax and don’t worry about when I do it, if I do it.

For instance, I was in Point Reyes, California for a month in May, and I painted a lot then. Since I came home, I haven’t painted in over 6 months. So part of me thinks, Oh, painting is done. Then about three weeks ago, I realized, No painting’s not done. You’re writing these essays, and these essays use the same energy that painting does.

In a way, an essay is like a square canvas where I try to fit in as much detail as I can. That’s what I do with painting. I realized that I hadn’t been painting because I was painting with my writing. As soon as I realized that, of course, I’ve just done three paintings (laughs). I just went back into the studio.

People want a clear delineation: I write for four hours a day, then I paint for two hours. Life isn’t like that. It unfolds.

For instance, I was burning to learn abstract painting, which I talked about in Living Color. So, 15 years ago, I started to do it; I’d go out on a picnic table in Taos, in Kit Carson Park, and I’d just do abstracts, or what I thought were abstracts. I didn’t think they were that good. Literally, last night, I pulled out those notebooks and they’re some of the best abstracts I’ve ever done. They’re wonderful.

Do you see what I mean? We have the idea that, No, they should be better now because I’ve been doing it for 15 years. But maybe when I was really burning for them was when they really came to me. There’s no linear thing. Basically, you have to have a soft heart and a willingness just to make that first step and step in. And you get wet.

Just like you (addressing ybonesy). You have an important straight job, and then you go to half time for a while so you can do more art. Then you go back to full time. Our life is a spiral. And you also realize, I like this work I do. And I like painting. It doesn’t have to be either/or.

red Ravine: One of the things we want to talk about is loneliness -- because writing is lonely. There’s a chapter in Writing Down the Bones called "Engendering Compassion" where you talk about the Black Dog, Loneliness. You say, “When I don’t feel loneliness, I know I’m not in connection with the edge of my life. I look around for that Black Dog, Loneliness, and make sure it’s near me.” After 35 years of writing and teaching, has your relationship with the Black Dog changed? And when you feel lonely or empty, where do you go to refill the well?

Natalie: That’s a really good question. I want to say, "Oh yes, I have a much better relationship with it," but right now, I’m dealing with (the fact that) my mother died three months ago. So the loneliness is so deep. Whatever engendered it when I was a child is just burning in me now.

Everything I think I know about loneliness has been swept under and I just feel this gnawing emptiness. And it’s painful. The only thing I know is to try to have a little bit of softness toward it and allow it to be, and at the same time not allow it to take over my entire life.

It’s a very tricky thing. But I do want to say that, yes, a writer’s life can be very lonely. That’s why it’s so important to have writing friends. Don’t expect the agent or the editor or the publishing world to be your friend and to be your support. You need writing friends who understand what you’re doing and support you and that you can share this hard and wonderful process with.

red Ravine: Natalie, speaking of friends, do you have a writing friend who has stuck with you through everything?

Natalie: Yeah, Rob Wilder and Eddie Lewis, I’ve been friends with for over 20 years. I’d say also, John Thorndike, though he lives in Ohio now. He used to live in New Mexico and he was a deep writing friend and still is.

But the people who live near are Rob and Eddie and Henry Shukman, too, but he’s English so often he’s in England for long periods. But Eddie and Rob have been consistently there, people I can always rely on. That’s been very important to me.

I know when I have something, I can share with them, I can talk about it. Knowing that I have them, I don’t even call that much. But I know that they’re there. Sometimes just knowing that person’s there is very important.

red Ravine: Can you talk a little bit about what happens to the friendship when you are working on a book?

Natalie: Yeah, sometimes there are periods when I’m working a lot, that Eddie is home a lot, he’s sort of like a housewife, so I’ll call him. Mostly we joke, or I’ll complain about writing. When I’m working on something I don’t talk a lot about it. I’ll just call and complain or ask how to spell something. Or, “Eddie what was that word? I need that word,” or we just joke. But I know he knows I’m writing. And he knows what that is.

And there’s Rob. I asked him and his wife (Lala Carroll) to help me when I read at Collected Works. I said, “Could you be my date?” Rob had a party for me afterwards. Eddie hung out with me and stayed with me at the bookstore. It’s almost mechanical sometimes -- “Can you come to the reading with me?” or “Would you read what I wrote and tell me it’s wonderful?” (laughs)

red Ravine: At this moment who are your favorite painters and writers, and what books are you reading right now?

Natalie: I am reading a killer book. I’m almost done with it. I’m going to assign it to my students in the August retreat. It’s called Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden. I have 20 pages left, and it’s a magnificent book.

I’m reading that and right before that, Patricia Hampl, who wrote Romantic Education. She has a new memoir called The Florist’s Daughter that just knocked me out. It was a sensational book. No one writes memoir like Patricia Hampl.

I’m teaching at IAIA one night a week with Rob Wilder this Spring semester. (Institute of American Indian Arts is a federally-funded college for Native Americans, who attend from all over the country.) I have to say, my students in that class are some of my most favorite writers who I admire.

These kids have not been incorporated, in some ways, with all the politeness and all the neuroses of white American comfortable society. A lot of these kids come from very broken lives and they don’t have a lot of protection between them and wild mind. So when they write, it brings me back to the original way I learned how to understand Writing Practice. Because I really developed it with Chippewa kids and African American kids in Minneapolis and in Detroit.

They’re some of my favorite writers, these kids that I’m working with now. They’re not kids, they’re adults...They’re college kids, but their writing -- they have no explanation. They just put things as they are. And they’re not aware that they’re not supposed to write about these things so they just lay it down on the page. I’m being incredibly inspired by them, remembering the origins of writing. That’s been very, very exciting for me.

In painting, well, I just love painting. Painting is my darling pleasure. When I went on the book tour, people would think I’d go to bookstores a lot. No, that’s my job! When I went into town, I’d go to the art museums and to galleries. That would relax me and give me a whole other outlet.

I love Wolf Kahn, Joan Mitchell. I love to look at local paintings. There’s a painter in Albuquerque who shows in Santa Fe, Tim Craighead. I’m just crazy about him. He shows at the Gerald Peters Gallery.

For the O’Keeffe Museum next week, I’m taking a group (on something) called Walks in the West, and I’m taking them to all the spots where Marsden Hartley painted. He spent a year in Taos. So we're going to drive up and I’m going to take them for that slow walk to the cross. We’re going to have lunch at Mabel Dodge. It’ll be wonderful.

One more painter I just thought of I want to mention: David Park. I just wrote an essay about him. Helen Bigelow is a friend of mine and an old student who came to study with me at Mabel Dodge. Her father was David Park, and he was a contemporary of Richard Diebenkorn. He’s part of the California Figurative School. I saw an incredible painting of his hanging at the Whitney last year. He made it really big. He died when he was young, at 46.

red Ravine: In Old Friend From Far Away, and also from studying with you, we’ve heard you say that memoir isn’t necessarily about a person’s entire life; it can be about a portion of one's life. You’ve written Long Quiet Highway about the portion of your life where you studied with Katagiri Roshi, and The Great Failure clarifying the truth you knew about that time in your life. What part of your life, Natalie, do you still want to write about?

Natalie: I’d kind of like to write about my mother. But it’s so complicated for me right now that I don’t see my way clear. Maybe at some point, I’d like to write about my mother.

Except for Banana Rose, I really haven’t written very much about my love life. And I’d kind of like to write about that, but I’m afraid that people who were my lovers will kill me (laughs). So I haven’t done that.

And I think I’d like to write something about what I know about Zen. Though I might have written that already in Old Friend From Far Away. Even though I didn’t mention Zen.

red Ravine: You’ve seen students drop everything in their lives and attempt to become writers. Why doesn't it always work to get rid of the obstacles and just become a writer?

Natalie: Yeah, it doesn’t work, because suddenly you have all the time in the world and you freeze. It puts too much pressure on writing. Also, we’re social animals and writing is a lonely thing.

In a way, my mistake was to do writing full time. I missed having a job where I could just show up and have to work and have to forget about me and my writing and my life. I don’t think it’s a good idea.

In Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique -- which came out, I think, in the 70’s -- there was a study where housewives who had all day to clean the house by the end of the day didn’t get any of it cleaned. Those same women, when they got a full-time job, managed in the half hour before they went to work to get all their housework done.

It’s almost that you have more time to feel guilty that you’re not writing. I think that having a bit of a structure and knowing at 1 o’clock I have to go do my other job, it sort of kicks ass. You don’t have so much time to wander around. You have to write -- sit down and actually do it.

red Ravine: Describe a typical day in your life. When you’re not promoting a book, what are you doing?

Natalie: I’m running a lot of errands, which I don’t seem to have done in Taos. But in Santa Fe I don’t know why I have so many errands to run (laughs).

I go to yoga classes 3 days a week, from 9:30 to 11. And the yoga class is right near my studio. So if I’m a good girl, I go to yoga and then immediately go to my studio. But then I have my computer at my studio, so I end up doing a lot of business first. And then settling down, either sometimes to write or paint.

But if you really look at my life -- at this point, I’ve been writing for 35 years -- every book takes a different need, requires different things. For instance, I wrote a lot of Old Friend going on hikes, and at the same time I had broken up an 11-year relationship. My heart was broken. I would go to my studio and I just didn’t want to stay there. I’d go on these long hikes, and I’d bring my backpack, and luckily I brought a little notebook, not planning to write. But as I walked the world would open up for me. I’d sit down on the side of the trail and write whole chapters.

I can’t give you any prescription of my life. If you ask me, my life is kind of chaotic. Like today, after we're done, I'll go to this wonderful café near IAIA, which is way south of town, like 25 minutes. But I’ll go there and I’ll do some work for a few hours and then I’m going to go to a lecture at IAIA. I use things in the outside world to structure my inner life of writing.

I’m not a bulldog like I used to be where I pushed everything aside for writing. Writing fits in now and weaves in with the rest of my life. The human life just goes forward. But this is after 35 years where I have enough confidence. Also, I’m tired of making writing the first thing. I don’t need to anymore because I have enough confidence.

red Ravine: How are your creative processes around writing and painting different?

Natalie: When I’m writing it takes all of me. I mean every single cell. When I’m really writing it takes every cell in my body, total concentration, and my whole life is in it. My whole life is on the line.

When I’m painting, I’m whistling, I’m playing music, I’m just happy. The predominant emotion is happiness. With writing there isn’t any predominant emotion. My whole life is distilled into that task. And I give my life over into the tip of that task. I want to say my whole life is distilled into god -- if god is everything.

red Ravine: In many respects, because of what you teach and how you teach it, you’ve become a symbol of the notion that anyone can write. Is it true -- can anyone write?

Natalie: Absolutely. Yes. They might not become Faulkner. A lot of people don’t want to become Faulkner. But anyone can pick up that pen and express their human life. And if they want to they can get better and better at it. Everyone can write. Everyone should have access to writing. It’s a very human activity. Human beings want to have a place where they can express themselves in language.

red Ravine: What is the most important thing you’ve learned from your students.

Natalie: That I love them. I know this sounds odd but when I’m actually teaching, I have to keep a lot of boundaries. You took an Intensive with me, and I had to hold you when you kind of all hated me or didn’t want to come back. I had to hold your resistance and be a still point. That’s hard.

I have a tremendous amount of equilibrium when I teach and not a lot of opinion. But when I went on this book tour where I wasn’t the teacher, and my students showed up, I cannot tell you the overwhelming love I felt for all of you. I just couldn’t believe it.

Because, really, why am I willing to hold that all for you? It’s because I love you. I didn’t ever quite know that before. I would say things like, "because it’s practice, because this, because of that”…but I realize now, it’s because the love –- ‘cause I love you -- that I’m willing to do it for all of you.

ybonesy: Wow, that’s really moving. (pause)

red Ravine: Do you ever get tired of teaching?

Natalie: Right now, I’m quite in love with it. There was a period, remember after The Great Failure came out, I took a year off. When I came back I hated teaching. I had never hated teaching. My teaching was really good, I could see everyone loved it, I knew it was good, the students were great -- and I hated it. And I didn’t know what to do.

Every time I taught for several months, it was like that. It was actually taking everybody that week, when I took you all to Ghost Ranch, that something happened and it broke. After that I kind of loved it again. Not only kind of loved it; I loved it more than ever. Ever since then I just enjoy every time I teach. I’m so excited to share Writing Practice with everyone. And to share this wonderful thing that I know. I’ll be teaching for the rest of my life.

red Ravine: Natalie, what do you consider your greatest accomplishment in life so far.

Natalie: I guess, developing and recognizing Writing Practice, staying with it, continually giving it to the world.

red Ravine: In your next life, what would you like to be?

Natalie: An opera singer (laughs). Did you ever read The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather about a poor young girl in a small town in Colorado who becomes a great opera singer? I want to be an opera singer.

red Ravine: If it were your last day on earth, how would you spend it?

Natalie: Oh. I think I would be really sad. Because I would be grieving not seeing it anymore. Not seeing the trees, I’m looking out my window..the piñon tree, not seeing the sky, not having hands and feet. I think I would really be very deeply sad. And very still. Full of gratitude and grief.

red Ravine: Natalie, why do you write?

Natalie: Ummmm…because I’m a dope? (everyone laughs). Because…Of everything I do in my life, it feels the most real, the most to the point, and the most honest.

red Ravine: What are you working on next?

Natalie: I’m working on these essays. Some of them I’ve published in Shambhala Sun. I’m hoping to put together a collection of essays. I’m also working on something else which is a secret. None of my writing has ever been a secret before. But this is so different than anything I’ve written, I haven’t told anybody. And I don’t know when -- maybe in 8 months or so -- I’ll be able to say something.

red Ravine: As a writer and an artist, how do you define success?

Natalie: On one level it’s that I feel good about it and I enjoy it. That’s the real success. But because I’m a human being in the world, I like that I’m able to make a living at it, that I have it as my job, that I have a career with it. I don’t know if that’s success though. It’s pleasurable and I’m proud of it. But I think the real success is that I continue. And that I continually take pleasure in it. And that it’s alive for me.

red Ravine: Natalie, it’s really been a privilege to spend this time with you. We want to thank you. We thought we’d end by having you read us a passage from Old Friend from Far Away.

Natalie: I might read one I know I like. Okay, you ready? It’s called "Vast":

Vast

We write memoir not to remember, not to cling, but to honor and let go. Wave after wave splashes on the shore and is gone. Your mother once wore an embroidered Mexican peasant shirt, had gleaming teeth and a full head of black hair. She pushed the hammock you lay in, a million oak leaves above your head. You didn't know yet your first word. You were slow to learn to talk and your first step was as enormous as an elephant's. Her waist was below her blouse and you could hide in a voluminous maroon skirt. Sharp was the blue sky, the white porch steps.
     Here's your mother now, frail at one hundred pounds, hearing aids plopped above her lobes, eyes a pale glaze seeing only form and shadow, in her own crooked way heading for another country.
     Let her be as she is. You can't save her. You can only remember as she dissolves. With one arm you reach all the way back and with your other arm you steady the walker that she grasps before her.
     But don't fool yourself. However old your mother is, you are always walking into vast rooms full of beginnings and endings, abundant with possibility. Try the empty cubicle of your page. What can you scratch in it before your turn comes to step up to the vast ocean all by yourself? Go. Ten minutes.

Natalie: It was wonderful to do an interview with the two of you. I love you both and take good care. And I feel honored and thank you for doing this for red Ravine.

QuoinMonkey: I feel so much gratitude for studying with you. I really appreciate you. Thank you so much.

red Ravine posts about Natalie Goldberg:

• To Everyone With Love
• Natalie Goldberg -- Old Friend From Far Away (Two Good Reasons To Buy Independent)
• Natalie Goldberg -- Old Friend From Far Away
• Natalie Goldberg -- 2000 Years Of Watching The Mind
• More About The Monkey -- Natalie Goldberg On Monkey Mind

We bought the couches on the payment plan in 1992 while living in Fargo, North Dakota.

We'd just gotten hitched the previous summer and lived in a bantam one-bedroom apartment downtown at Roberts Street Place. Everything we owned was second-hand including a tattered old couch with a splintered wooden frame and a two-inch foam pad covered with a bed sheet for a cushion. It had been my bedroom during my first stint in college, situated below a wide picture window looking out toward a grove of red maples and Glenn's sand volleyball court. I recovered from a minor surgical "procedure" sprawled on that couch. I'd watched the entire Star Wars trilogy (on VHS) for the first time curled up with a wool blanket on that couch. But it was my bachelor couch, and it had to go.

So we went shopping, our then-perfect credit score in hand, and found the perfect set. For around $800, we netted a couch, love seat, two faux oak end tables, a coffee table, and two lamps with robin's-egg-blue bases and cream colored shades. We had no room left to romp once the guys with the truck hauled it all in.

Looking through our scrapbooks this morning, those couches are in nearly every picture. There they are in a picture of the old Berean gang studying the Bible and eating Doritos. There they are when we brought each of our four kids home from the hospital – mom proud but exhausted and the kid so small and snuggled. Fifteen Christmases.

Now they are sitting on our porch. Relocated after the new set arrived a couple months ago.

A friend tells me I'm now officially a redneck.

Their stuffing is gone. There are gaping holes in the arms where the frame has been pushed through after years as a headrest. A footrest. A jump-hug launching pad. After late nights lost in the throes of romance with the subtle glow of candlelight and the scent of vanilla wafting from the tealights melting on the end table. The bees are building a hive in the loveseat, or so my daughter says. But Beefcake does his homework out there now that the weather's turned all sunny and dry. And no one else wants them. Not even for free.

Yeah, they're ugly. And beautiful. And available . . .

About Freewriting

Aunt Jemima pancake mix . . . the kind where you have to add milk and eggs and oil . . . not the "complete" crap.

Orange juice and 2% milk.

Joe and Kody, two of my son's friends, had spent the night. We'd stayed up until nearly three in the morning playing Dungeons & Dragons on the PS2. Kody, the cleric, went around swooping up all the gold while the rest of us fought our little fingers off. He did heal us frequently, however, so I guess there was that.

Being one not to waste a beautiful Saturday morning, I hauled their carcasses out of bed at the bright-and-early hour of 9:00 A.M. We sat around the table and ate like the adventurers we were, fresh off the hunt and famished. The little ones joined us, as did mom, and we shared stories of furious battles and mighty conquests in the name of good and justice.

Kody had to check in at home so Joe suggested we manipulate the game a bit and steal some of our gold back. We decked out our characters with the best of everything – shiny silver swords and daggers, spells out the wazoo, and enough resurrection stones to keep up alive, relatively speaking, for hours. Kody was pissed at first, but the purse needed a proper divvying and the light of day, clear skies and full bellies eventually made for clear heads and hearts. We battled on and beat the game with ease.

Breakfast never tasted so good . . .

About Freewriting

Happiness means something different every time I experience it. Lately all that would be labeled "happy" has an undercurrent of sadness that jostles such moments back toward the hard beach of reality. I'll smile at an anecdote during a conversation or when I see my grass starting to green up and my wife's tulips reach toward the sun, but then I remember the bills that need paying, or the imminent layoff at work and ponder what life will hold for me if my name shows up on the list this time. Or my bad teeth. Then my gaze will darken, I'll lower my head and swallow the laugh that used to be so powerful and contagious, and remember that I'm not supposed to be happy. The sirens will sing their song, the words of which are always annoyingly the same – "There's nothing to be happy about."

Recently I went online to sign up for fall classes only to learn that both the classes I needed, available at times when I could squeeze them in, were full. In desperation I sent an email to both professors explaining my sorry situation, and they both worked with me to get me registered. I even managed to sign up for a summer class with a professor and friend I adore and respect. So I guess you could say I experienced happiness. Though now I fret about all the gas that I'll need to make the trip to school each day, and the fact that it's been three years since my last semester of Spanish and I'm rustier than the Titanic. But the thought of digging deep and finding out if I've still got what it takes to do well in school, raise four kids, love my wife, work somewhere and pay for it all, while overwhelming, has a thin silver ring of happiness around the edges. And I guess that's about all the happiness I can hope for.

About Freewriting

Dad's voice would change when he played the part of George, a high-strung little kid just like the rest of us who also happened to really love Jesus. George was made of wood and slept in a suitcase. His voice rang tinny and compact, muffled yet articulate and quick, accompanied by a frantic jerking of his head and a horizontal sweeping of giant eyes – a clue that, yes kiddos, that was the punch line of his Bible story. Then his jaw would drop and his teeth separate into the only grin he could manage and he'd laugh. George was gentle, compassionate, knew the Bible well and loved to tell other kids about the love of God. And he had a great suit.

One day I'm sitting on the couch watching something unrememberable on TV when a different wooden face appears on the screen:

Abracadabra I sit on his knee / Presto! Chango! Now he is me!

A simple commercial – one big eye, half a sinister smile with a sharp curve upward at the corner and a five-second phrase – and my world shook. Never before had an image so basic and minimal yet so obviously evil been embedded in my young mind.

From that day forward, even if George would have suddenly begun spitting out gold coins and performing miracles with the cold touch of his little wooden hands, he would be nothing more than a harbinger of pain and suffering. Such was the effect Fats made on me in that televised moment.

I must have gotten over it all eventually. The curtain has parted, so to speak, and I know what lies behind the wooden smile and herky-jerky motions. I even rented the movie Magic as an adult, just to face the fuss buzzing in my memories.

Strangely enough, I am a big fan of psychological thrillers.  Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter still rocks my world . . . deep down where fear is lurking . . .

About Freewriting

Nearly everything that passed for dessert at any church picnic I ever attended was made of Jell-O. Pies with chocolate or butterscotch Jell-O pudding chilled under a layer of graham cracker crumbs – those were favorites. Being a bit of a perfectionist, and always one to take steps to make sure my little piles of food never touched, I cringed a bit as I scooped out my slice and watched the crumbs fall all over the mashed potatoes or shower the green bean casserole. And then, if I didn't get to the pie quickly enough, it would start to lose its firmness and sag, leaving a wider footprint on my already overbooked and flimsy paper plate as it encroached closer to the meatloaf. If food had attitude, Jell-O would be lethargic, apathetic and just plain rude.

But give me some vanilla pudding with Nilla wafers and I'm a happy guy.

The worst were the casserole dishes with bright red finger Jell-O – the kind you could supposedly just pick up and eat without utensils. If the picnic was outside, these tended to get a layer of anti-coagulated Jell-O blood on top that made picking up a chunk damn near impossible. If I didn't drop the little two-square-inch slippery bastard on my clean shirt and leave a nasty stain, then the goo on my fingers would eventually do the trick.

About Freewriting

From Damian Daily, a funny and informative interview with Howard Mittelmark and Sandra Newman, co-authors of How Not to Write a Novel.

And from Books on the Brain, some highlights from Natalie Goldberg's new book, Old Friend From Far Away:

She states that first we must know how to remember, a skill I need to develop as my memory is as hole-y as swiss cheese. She gives exercises and writing prompts on how to discover forgotten memories. One such prompt is to write for 10 minutes about what you don’t remember.

What I don’t remember?? Hmmm. It’s odd how trying to think of things you don’t remember brings up a plethora of things you do. But perhaps that’s the point.

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

She states that first we must know how to remember, a skill I need to develop as my memory is as hole-y as swiss cheese. She gives exercises and writing prompts on how to discover forgotten memories. One such prompt is to write for 10 minutes about what you don't remember.

What I don't remember?? Hmmm. It's odd how trying to think of things you don't remember brings up a plethora of things you do. But perhaps that's the point. Here are just a handful of things I don't remember.

1. I don't remember what I had for lunch yesterday, I guess because it was unimportant and I was distracted by worry over a medical procedure my daughter was having.
2. I don't remember learning to read, although I have vivid memories of learning to write (with a purple crayon, on the walls of my bedroom).
3. I don't remember learning to swim.. it seems I've always been able to do that.
4. Junior high is a blur.
5. I don't remember the first time I held hands with a boy, but I do know who the boy was.
6. I don't remember watching the sun rise or set for the first time ever.
7. I don't remember the first time I smoked a cigarette, although I do remember the last time, even after many years.
8. I don't remember the first time I held my baby brother (I was 12) but I do remember my sister coming home from the hospital (I was 2).

Memory is so random! Why do certain, often meaningless trivial things, leave an indelible impression, while other much more important memories are lost? And are they truly lost, or is memory like a computer hard drive.. the info is there even though we may no longer be able to access it (at least not without some technical assistance)?

I invite you to try this exercise and tell us what you don't remember. Leave a link in the comments. I would especially like to tag a few favorite bloggers: Chartroose, Trish, Bookbabie, Lyndsey, and Kim. There are a couple real writers in that crowd, so the answers should be interesting.

It's been almost a month since I went to Bookworks on Rio Grande Boulevard in Albuquerque's Rio Grande valley to hear Natalie Goldberg read from her new book, Old Friend from Far Away: The Practice of Writing Memoir.

Bookworks is a small bookstore, one of the few independents left in the city. Every nook is packed with something -- books, journals, cards, stationery. It's the kind of bookstore that makes you feel like you've walked into the living room of an eccentric old bibliophile.

It was amazing they fit in as many chairs as they did -- four rows, about ten chairs in a row. Which means, 40 of us were sitting -- the ones lucky enough or smart enough to get there early. I snagged the last chair, tucked against a bookshelf. I didn't see it until I'd been standing for ten minutes. I was relieved to sit.

Every other open space in the bookstore was then filled with mostly women, mostly my age or older, standing. They were like water flooding the store. They lined the aisles, one person standing behind another standing behind another. It was vaguely reminiscent of the midnight sale of book seven in the Harry Potter series, except on a smaller scale.

A woman I knew, a recent transplant from Denver, sat two chairs over from me. We leaned in to chat about how excited we were to see Natalie. The woman motioned with her chin around the room. "I can't believe we didn't have to stand in the line to get in. If this were in Denver, they'd have to sell tickets, and there'd be a line just to buy the tickets." She was right. Albuquerque is still a town masquerading as a city.

Natalie arrived late. She was calm; she's always calm. She tried sitting in the wingback chair they had set up for her in the front of the store, but when she did, she could only see the people in the first row. Instead she pushed aside a display of small bunnies -- Easter paraphernalia -- and climbed atop a platform normally used for merchandise.

"Ah, that's better," she smiled as she looked around the room.

It's hard this many weeks later to summarize what Natalie said. From my notes, I offer these few gems:

• Of the recent memoir debacle, where a young memoirist was busted for falsely portraying herself as a half Native American, half-white foster child involved with gangs in South-Central LA, Natalie said that this fabrication and others like it are an indication of how much energy there is around memoir.
• She said people who want to write memoir sometimes think they need to span their entire lives. Writing memoir isn't about writing your life -- birth to however old you are now. It can be writing about a portion of your life: My life with men. My life with chocolate.
• Old Friend from Far Away is, according to Natalie, the closest experience you'll have to being in the classroom with her. Having read several chapters in the book and having spent many weeks in her workshops, I can vouch -- it's as if I'm there all over again.
• She said the book is structured the way it is for a reason: so readers won't freeze on any one chapter in the book. No hanging a section like you would a poem on your refrigerator. She wants us to read the whole book; "It was made with the whole mind."

Natalie read three or so chapters from the book. In one titled "One Thing" (p.247) I recognized immediately a fellow student of Natalie's who participated in the same year-long intensive that QuoinMonkey and I attended. "Just Sitting -- Or Doing the Neola" (p. 82) was inspired by another student. I smile now thinking how much the essence of her students is captured in this book.

               Thank you
               Sky and tree
               Big and small
               Green and red

               The taste of chocolate
               Bread and pinto beans

               This land and other lands

               Past and future
               Human, dog and zebra

               Everything you know--
               And the things you don't

               Hunger, zest, repetition
               Homesickness,
               Welcome.

               This is for all my students

                          ( ~ the dedication in Old Friend from Far Away)

Of the chapters she read, my favorite was "Fulfilled" (p. 275). Many of us were in tears. The chapter is for us, every one of us who's ever wanted to write. It's long for an excerpt, and much as I've tried to shorten it, here it is almost in its entirety:

The author Willa Cather believed that if you had a wish for something from a young age--for example, being an opera singer--and you continually made effort at it, you would live a fulfilled life. It didn't matter if you were on stage at the Metropolitan; maybe you sang in a local theater; perhaps you took lessons and belted it out in the shower and at family gatherings. That was good enough. The important thing was to stay connected with your dream and that effort would result in a basic happiness.
       Cather said that those who gave up carried something painful, cut off inside, and that their lives had a sense of incompleteness.
       ...
       ...
       Don't let the light go out. Get to work, even if the going is slow and you have six mouths to feed and two jobs.
       A few years ago I was invited to meet with the creative writing students in a graduate program at a big midwestern university. When I asked what their plans were, eight out of the ten, turning up their empty palms, said, well, the most we can hope for is a job at a community college. We know it's hard out there in the book world.
       I was quiet and looked down. In their heart of hearts I wanted them to be thinking: Tolstoy, Garcia Lorca, Jane Austen, Proust, Alice Walker, Naguib Mahfouz, Virginia Woolf, Chinua Achebe. They seemed beaten-down, too practical, too rational at such young ages. All of them should have been hungry to step up to the plate and smack the ball home. What happened?
       Great writers do not write so that their readers will feel defeated. They wait for us to blow on the embers and keep the heat going. It is our responsibility. When we understand this, we grow up. We become a woman. We become a man.
       No institution can give you this authority; though you may learn many wonderful things there. Like a little bird, you must open your small beak and feed yourself one drop of rosewater at a time, then a kernel of corn, a single sesame seed, even a tiny pebble. Keep nourishing yourself on great writers. You will grow from the inside out and stand up on the page.
       No protest, no whining. Right now take a nibble of bread. Make a bit of effort. It does not have to be enormous. Just go in the right direction and the trees, insects, clouds, bricks of buildings will make a minute turning with you and salute you.

After Natalie signed my book and I snapped shots of her signing it and the person's behind me, I said goodbye, tucked my camera into my pocket, and turned to leave. Natalie called out to me: "Send everyone my love on the blog."

-related to posts, Natalie Goldberg -- Old Friend From Far Away (Two Good Reasons to Buy Independent), Natalie Goldberg — 2000 Years Of Watching The Mind, Beginner’s Mind, More About The Monkey

"Wow. One minute you go to sleep and the next minute you wake up in the bathtub"

                                        Will Vanderslice, age 7, musing on last night's events

It all happened rather suddenly. At eleven last night, I was upstairs glued to the tv keeping storm vigil, as I usualy do during severe weather.  Everyone else was asleep.  I was tracking the tornados that kept raking over Hot Springs and then following them through Little Rock and beyond.  KARK's trusted meterologist Brett Cummins (he's so serious, so earnest) had just explained how these tornadoes had formed out ahead of the squall line and those were therefore the most dangerous.  As opposed to the line of storms in the squall line heading toward Conway.  These were strong, but not as much to worry about.

Hmmm, I wondered.  Then what's that little spinning arrow showing rotation just west of Conway? 

I kept on wondering but no one on any of the local stations said anything about it, focused as they were on the pummeling of Hot Springs and Little Rock.

Then the tv went out out. 

Ok, no cause for alarm yet, this can happen in a hard rain.

Then the sirens went off.  Time to "put your tornado plans in place," as Brett says. I sprang into action, dragging the boys out of bed and downstairs and John out of bed, and all of us into the downstairs bathroom.  Even though it only happens once every couple of years (Thank God), we know the drill.  Boys in the tub, John and me on the floor outside tub, squeezed between the commode and the wall, all of us with the twin guest mattress over our heads, waiting.

Jackson, bless his heart and his God given ability to sleep through anything, just curled up with the sleeping bag and went right back to dreamland.  Will sat up with us and shared the countdown until 11:45, which, as you might imagine, went like this:

"How many more minutes?"

"About twenty."

"How many more minutes?

"Nineteen."

And so on. You get the picture.  Thankfully, the warning expired at the predicted time, the boys all went back to bed and I stayed up to make sure that the excitement was, indeed, over for the evening.  The sirens were for a funnel cloud north of us, but on the whole, Conway was spared, though poor Little Rock and Hot Springs are in serious recovery mode.

I haven't forgotten the giveaway, I'm going to do the drawing this weekend and announce the winner of The Observation Deck in my next post.

Meanwhile, I've been reading and writing and rounding out the semester.  Visiting classes to observe the finalists as part of my job as committee member for the Teaching Excellence Award Committee.  I really like visiting the different classes and feeling like a student again.  Except, No Tests!  So far, I've enjoyed learning about Neurological disorders in a nursing class and am looking forward to an honors class, a biology class and a speech pathology class next week. 

Reading.  The Glass Castle, a memoir by Jeanette Walls, for a lively new monthly women's book club I've joined.  A rollicking, crazy retelling of her childhood with a wild, nomadic family.   

Old Friend From Far Away: The Practice of Writing Memoir</a> by Natalie Goldberg.  I used up almost a whole post-it note pad marking up all the great writing exercises I want to use in this.  As good or better than Writing Down the Bones, the most accessible, sensible book on memoir I've read.  However, Goldberg's tendency to tell you, in one way or another, to write for just ten minutes, got old really fast.  There was the old standby, "write for ten minutes," my favorite.  Simple.  Unassuming.  Never goes out of style.  Then there was:

Go.  Ten Minutes. 

or

Ten Minutes.  Go.

or

Give me ten minutes on. . . or, Go ahead, Give me ten minutes.

I completely understand the purpose of these short assignments, you write with a concentrated burst of energy and if the piece demands it, you go back later.  Presto, subjects for longer essays. 

I just didn't like feeling like I was in boot camp.

Susan Campbell Bartoletti's novel The Boy Who Dared, based on the true story of sixteen year old Helmuth Hubener, who defied Hitler Youth in Nazi Germany and hung for it.  I read it for more novel research (one of my characters is a Nazi Youth member about Hubener's age).  It could be quite compelling at times but at others, felt more like summary than scenes.  This may be because Bartoletti knows the subject so well; she won a Newbery Honor medal for a nonfiction book about Hitler Youth. 

A fun book called Garage Sale America, by Bruce Littlefield (a must click link!).  Ah, he captures the spirit of the sport perfectly.  And the beauty of it: I got this relatively new book for 2.50 at a flea market where everything in the booth was half off. Bruce would be so proud!

It's that time of year again, folks.  Spring is in the air and bargains lie in wait at on sawhorse tables all over Central Arkansas.  I went early today for an hour and a half and let me tell you, if I was in the market for antique furniture, I would have hit the jackpot.  As it was I scored: a great vintage apron ($1), a vintage toleware tray($1) and a funky wood sixtie's lounge-style painting ($1). Not much, but not bad for a rainy day either and I'm only getting started. . .

That's all for now--look for the winner in the next post--

Bye y'all,

SV
PS $563,000 has been donated to far to Save the Mount. George Soros, are you reading this?

Several summers ago, my sons attended Boy Scout camp here in northern Indiana. It was one of those moist summers with plenty of humidity and standing pools of icky brown water that seem to be miniature little Howard Johnson's for insect breeding. Usually, they spray around here to keep the bugs at bay, but that summer they could have dumped the whole darn tanker truck on the camp and it wouldn't have made a difference.

I went to pick up my youngest son up on the final morning of camp. It was a typical morning for that summer – already hot as a sauna with dampness nearly visible in the thick, choking air. I drove from the city, where the bugs aren't too terrible, and into the Manhattan of mosquitodom. My God! They were everywhere! You know how, with most mosquito-infested areas, a few squirts of Off and, well, they generally stay off? Not here. I imagine soaking myself in gasoline and setting myself ablaze would have been the only thing that could have kept them at bay. I danced and swatted and jumped and zigged and zagged and ran for cover. But these mosquitoes were smarter than I was, for they found ways to crawl up my pants legs and down my collar and into my ears and . . . I think I may have swallowed one or two of the damn things.

All that exercise in the time it took to scrounge up my son's sleeping bag, toss it in the trunk, strap his squirming booty into the front seat and hit the gas.

Somewhere, the bug gods were smiling . . .

[This Writing Practice exercise was inspired by the latest prompt posted here.]

My family.

Ty's constant nagging about this thing that's bugging him or that thing his sister did that pissed him off. The way his mind wanders and his smile brightens the whole house when he finds the humor in it all.

Aryn's love of books and her sweet disposition. The way she crawls into bed to snuggle and doesn't care that she may be too old to do that anymore.

Ethan's zest for life that others mistake for misbehavior. Especially his laugh – oh so contagious. And his bright blue eyes that seem to dig so deep into the mysteries of life. The way he tells me about his dreams that make absolutely no sense but sound as true as rain.

Zoe's attitude – "Talk to the hand!" She's a firecracker set to pop and smokin'. Yet the gentle way she lays her head on my chest and tells me to shave my pricklies.

My wife's banter. I won't have to tune her out and try to work (or play) around her attempts to tell me the minutia of her day. Sorting through the distractions for the nugget upon which to tightly cling and cherish.

Doing the Jimi Thing with Dave and fighting demons with Mike Portnoy and John Petrucci.

Reading to pass the time on break or before bed when the house is quiet and I should be sleeping. Piscine Molitor Patel.

Drinking warm coffee with milk and sugar, watching the steam mingle with the smoke from Joe Camel.

Breathing in while closing my eyes, just to clear my head or rearrange the furniture.

"What Would Natalie Say?"

Yeah, I can hear her in my head now, just like I do with all the teachers I adore. I once totally gave up some jealousy I had been hanging onto for 5 years, just because I asked, "What Would Steven Say?" I'm sure the Anti-Guru hates that, and Natalie proably will, too. But they can just deal. Steven does and Natalie lives in New Mexico.

I know I am a teacher's pet, a suck up and a total fan when it comes to teachers I love.

If Natalie Goldberg can stand in front of a room and tell us how she found herself at the end of a book tour, in a hotel, barely able to remember her name or where she was after all that traveling, petting a book, then I can ask "What Would Natalie Say?" God knows I've petted a lot of books myself. (Lately, World Without End by Ken Follet. Go to the bookstore and pet the pages of the hardcover copy and you'll see why.)

I try not to be obsequious, but I fall totally in love with my teachers. Some would say it's because words are my favorite love language. Unless you are talking to me, I do not know you love me.

Natalie said so many priceless things tonight. The shortest and pithiest was , "Go!"

That was always preceded by brief, outlandish instructions on a topic for writing practice. If you want to know what I mean, read Old Friend From Far Away. Go!

"I don't write at night."

"What Would Natalie Say?"

She'd say, "Talk about how you never write at night. 10 minutes. Go!"

Taskmistress.

That's okay. That's why we love her. I could not think of anything to ask that she had not already answered in her books. I don't know if that's good or bad and what's the difference anyways? In fact, she cut most questioners off with "I know what you're going to say" and proceeded to answer their question . . . correctly. Or to tell us where she answers that and in which book.

Jesus, if I'd been writing for 20-odd years, about writing . . . well, I don't know, but she has earned that right. She can interrupt me anytime. But I kept my mouth shut. I wanted to ask about memoirs with incest in them besides hers in The Great Failure, but I can find those on my own.

She said, "I lost the whole Zen community over that one." She went on to say it was painful and that she came through it as her own authority.

Somewhere in there she mentioned the phrase "loving what is," and "inquiry,"  and made me wonder if she's a student of The Work of Byron Katie. I don't know. She talked about how through writing and through reading difficult books, we grow up. She talked about how a book can kill us.

Do you know that it was Natalie, and the writing practice she designed and popularized that got me writing these blogs? Go!

That and Tama Kieves, who offers supportive writing practice at her Freewriting Fridays in Denver, Colorado. Only with her, it's "20 minutes. Go!"

God, you'd think they had the same mother. Oh, wait. They do. In a sense. They're both of Jewish heritage.  Hmm.

I picture their potty training, their mothers looking at them on the toilet, "5 minutes. Go!" 

Here, from page 238 of Old Friend From Far Away:

"Tell me what is your anchor, what you trust and can come home to over and over in your writing? Go. 10 minutes."

It's 10:15 at night.

I'm writing.

I'm nervous about my upcoming move, but not that nervous.

What would Natalie say?

"Go!"

Love, Ann

Quotes from Natalie's Book Signing Talk:

"I don't use the word spiritual. I practice."

"When people are in denial, they stay in denial. They're not going to come out and read your book."

"Build a spine."

"You have to be willing to be disturbed to be a writer."

"Cut through that. It doeesn't have to do with other people's needs. It has to do with how you live your life."

Old Friend From Far Away, Minneapolis, Minnesota, February 2008, photo © 2008 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

I bought Natalie Goldberg's new book, Old Friend from Far Away: The Practice of Writing Memoir, on February 14th, Valentine's Day. Actually, Liz bought it for me, the creative version of romance - a writer's gift. We visited Common Good Books, an Independent bookstore in Saint Paul, between touring the Minnesota State Capitol (by day), and attending a Victorian Poetry Slam at the James J. Hill House on Summit Avenue (by night).

It was the first time I had been to Common Good Books, owned by one of Minnesota's native sons (and the host of A Prairie Home Companion), Garrison Keillor. I went at the urging of a friend. I slid Natalie's book off the shelf in excited anticipation. It was the last one they had in stock.

The book feels good in the hands. The paper is soft and textured, the front cover is inviting, and I can't wait to dive in. I took some time off this weekend. Rested. Today begins a new week. Sometimes I need a little inspiration. I pick up a book.

Natalie talked about writing Old Friend from Far Away in the Writing Intensive in Taos last year. Sometimes she would show us the manuscript with the cross-outs and revisions. Other times she would read partially completed chapters to us. Twice, I saw her write new lines into a paragraph while she was sitting there. She said she was inspired by her students; the book is dedicated to them.

Studying with an author while they are actually writing a book is a rare gift. I learned so much from her sharing the process (both successes and mistakes). The next best thing is hearing the writer read her work. If you want to see Natalie read from her new book, maybe you can catch her on tour from February through April of this year.

If you are looking to learn more about Writing Practice and memories, pick up a copy for yourself. Spending the money to buy a writer's book shows your support for the writer. You might also want to consider doing your shopping in an Independent bookstore near you. Yeah, it takes more effort than ordering online. And is sometimes more expensive. But it's worth it.

Here are a couple of reasons why:

ONE:

When I hit sunlight on the sidewalk, I felt that I had just been in another world, a place full and close to me. After that day, Centicore was mine. I lived in it.

Since then I have sought out bookstores in every town and city I pass through, the way someone else might search for old battle sites, gourmet food or sports bars. I consider the people working in bookstores my friends. If I'm lost, need a good restaurant or a cheap place to stay, I go to a bookstore, confident someone there will direct me.

If a town has no bookstore, I feel sad for the place. It doesn't have that concentrated wealth of minds that includes twelfth-century Japan, a painter in Tahiti, traditional North American Indian pottery, memories of war, a touch of Paris and the Mississippi, a lament on love's transiency and instruction on how to cook a good chicken stew. You can live in a small hamlet on the Nebraska plains and if there's a bookstore, it's like the great sun caught in one raisin or in the juicy flesh of a single peach.

A bookstore captures worlds -- above, behind, below, under, forward, back. From that one spot the townspeople can radiate out beyond physical limit. A hammer and nails in the hardware store down the block, though fine and useful tools, can't quite do the same job. Even an ice cream parlor -- a definite advantage -- does not alleviate the sorrow I feel for a town lacking a bookstore.

-Natalie Goldberg, from Thunder and Lightning; Cracking Open the Writer's Craft, chapter excerpt, Smack! Into the Moment

TWO:

What Happened To Orr Books?  Bookstores across the country are closing every month. Buy Independent!

I know it's not always possible to shop at an Independent bookstore. I confess, I buy my share of books online. Particularly if I am rushed for time, or am looking for obscure or out-of-print books. Many times, smaller bookstores don't have the room to keep older books in stock.

And I found when I worked at a large bookstore chain, they, too, would often have to order older books online. In that case, I cut out the middle man and buy direct. But when I do shop online, I try to visit sites like Alibris: New, Used, Rare and Out-of-Print Books. Alibris supports Independent bookstores by uniting book sellers from all over the globe, and giving you the online alternative of patronizing an Independent.

However you shop, I hope you'll get out to support Natalie on tour and purchase her new book, Old Friend from Far Away. And please come back and share any insights you've gained from reading about the practice of writing memoir. We'd love to hear them.

THREE:

Make that three good reasons!

Common Good Books, Saint Paul, Minnesota, February 2008, photo © 2008 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

Common Good Books
165 Western Avenue North
(downstairs in the Blair Building, beside Nina's Coffee Cafe on Selby)
St Paul, Minnesota 55102

Store Hours:
Monday through Saturday - 10am to 10pm
Sunday - 10am to 8pm

Contact:
Phone: 651-225-8989
CommonGoodBooks.com

-posted on red Ravine, Monday, February 18th, 2008

-related to post, Natalie Goldberg -- 2000 Years Of Watching The Mind, Beginner's Mind, More About The Monkey

Natalie Goldberg, Old Friend from Far Away - The Practice of Writing Memoir, December 21st, 2007 (to play video, click either green arrow twice)

Natalie Goldberg has a new book coming out on February 12th, Old Friend from Far Away - The Practice Of Writing Memoir. One of our readers tipped us off to a video clip from the Free Press Division of Simon & Shuster (thank you, Jackie).

Without Natalie, there is a good chance that red Ravine would not be here. Nor would Writing Practice. We are grateful for everything she has taught us.

To Natalie, a deep bow. And thank you.

Millions of Americans want to write about their lives. With Old Friend as the road map for getting started and following through, writers and readers will gain a deeper understanding of their own minds, learn to connect with their senses in order to find the detail and truth that give their written words power and authenticity, and unfold the natural structure of the stories they carry within.

An absolute joy to read, it is a profound affirmation of the capacity of the written word to remember the past, free us from it, and forever transform the way we think about ourselves and our lives. Like Writing Down the Bones, Goldberg's classic book about the practice of writing, it will become an old friend to which readers return again and again.

-posted on red Ravine, Thursday, January 10th, 2008

-schedule of Natalie's workshops: Natalie Goldberg Workshops