Tyana at ebay parkAn early morning wind. Fertile soil. Untamed growth. That’s my field of dreams at the beginning of a story.
Tentative, like a weekend gardener, I walk the perimeter. I drag out a hoe, a shovel, pruning shears. A deep breath, a few cautious steps into the tangle of weeds and then a peek at the blue eye of a cornflower. I am ready to plant my story.
My writing includes a lot of dishwashing, walking, piddling, CNN background noise, and to stay with the garden metaphor, a lot of manure. All this and hours in front of the computer screen.
I want be a travel writer. I imagine I have to be a mobile gardener. Not only will I have to be proficient with the tools and terms of the essay, I have to be alert on the road. Observe things. Write them down. Elicit responses from deep down and from around me. I have devised a set of lists that need to accompany my first steps into the field.
Before any trip my foremost concerns are with factual, physical, and emotional preparedness. Travel demands plans and the willingness to throw them overboard. Writing demands structure and the boldness to ignore it. I am excited to embark on this double adventure. I am thrilled that my first attempt will be the exploration of Hadrian’s Wall – a long distance walk through Roman past and British modernity. Bed and Breakfast near the Vallum. A hop, skip, and jump past hedgerows and dry stone walls. A longing look into pastoral distances. Museums, forts, and of course the WALL. I will follow in the footsteps of a second century world power. In case my feet don’t work out as planned, there is always line AD122, public transportation along the path.
AD122 is one of the things I discovered during extensive web searches. Another is the BBC weather forecast. The bus schedule makes me happy. The weather is unpredictable. Both components are important to the success of my journey; the first as alternate transportation the second as wayfarer warning. I found out that Wiliam Hutton, one of the 19th century walkers we know about, seems to have speculated a lot about the history of the wall; he seems to have made mistakes in his assumptions. My trip would depend on the most up to date guide book – the official “Hadrian’s Wall Path’ by Anthony Burton. I have read it once already; now I am making notes, print out parts, construct a continuous picture in my mind. In the late hours, just before falling asleep, I wander on my imaginary path, happily marching to the literary voice of my leader.
Hadrian’s Wall Path is a National Trail and according to the preface to the guidebook walking the whole length along a ‘specified route’ has not been possible since the fifth century when Roman occupation ended. With the opening of the National Trail in 2003 I now will be able to walk from Wallsend – between Tynemouth and Newcastle close to the North Sea – all the way to Bowness-on-Solway by the Irish Sea – 84 miles of ever changing terrain over flatland, near rivers, through fields, woods, towns and villages and over crags.
Travel accounts confirm the fact that anticipation and reality of travel are usually far apart. We formulate an ideal picture or we might even, in a regretful hour, envision disaster. All in all it is rare that the preview our thoughts speculate on are in unison with the experience that awaits us.
For the writer this might even be impossible. Not a day goes by without imagination’s wildest input. I have read books, studied maps, consulted the Internet. I have bought a compass, a whistle, walking sox, and a blister kit. I should, I think, be prepared for anything.
Anything the 84-mile hike along an ancient Roman fortification might present me with. I am ready for Hadrian’s Wall.
Though I carefully planned my wardrobe to take up the least amount of space, and I have made copies of travel papers and have envisioned a plan B for most occasions, the major amount of my time has gone into dialog with potential companions.
I am quite serious about this. I am contemplating as much a literary device as a conversation piece. Last but not least I need an uncommon companion as teacher. Let me explain.
When I was young I wandered through life uninstructed. My real education didn’t begin until I was forty-five - after a sad divorce - during a complicated love affair. I began to sort through the ruins of my self-esteem. Somebody had to tell me who I was. Somebody who would correct my thinking but wouldn’t punish me for past mistakes.
I invented Dr. Steinfeld. My imaginary shrink was the first of several guardians I made up over the years. Dr. Steinfeld educated me from the inside out by allowing me to accept some questions as unanswerable. I imagine we all have teachers in us – roles we explore as we go along – in order to survive. I just happen to give mine names. Bring them to life. Like some files on my computer, the psychiatrist’s teaching role was hidden and only surfaced when a serious attempt was made to destroy my mental well-being. Suddenly I was drawn into a crash course of identifying and locating the tools that would free me. At my computer I never fail to be impressed with the results of explorations into unfamiliar software. In my personal confrontation with impending doom, at forty-five, I accepted the notion of an invisible psychiatrist with some reservations. Now, at 65, I am no longer surprised by the arrival of new teachers.
Dr. Steinfeld served as my mentor for almost twenty years. I wrote to him, talked to him, frowned at him in the mirror, and at least once I dreamt of him as if he were a real person. He had two helpers – Madam X, a mannequin, whom I call my immortal sister and Laura Spencer, my more carefree, spirited alter ego. Madam X became the center of essays and poems I wrote. At a time when I questioned the sagging and wrinkling of my own body, she stood in as a shining example of perfection. Now I no longer depend on her beauty for consolation. She stands silently in my spare room, still wearing her mysterious look, yet no longer endowed with special qualities. And Laura Spencer – figment of my literary imagination – kept track of all the secrets I was not able to write about in my own journal. A third person account of first person remembrances.
One day my imaginary shrink suggested an imaginary island community. I invented Easter Island as home for a band of stuffed rabbits. I sewed day and night to fulfill their group experience. They were a self-reliant and ambitious bunch of furry friends who taught me to accept their varied characters and appearances. They insisted on a history and a scrapbook full of photographs. Alfie, Oliver, Kate, Cocoapuff, Grandpa Woodie, Uncle Elmo, Morgan Cloud, Jason Rocky and all the others. When they had given me all that I needed, they walked off into a homeless shelter to amuse a group of lonely children.
After Easter Island I made up Tiny Trina – the child of the sacred mountains – a spiritual guide surrounded by night shadows and flaming candles. Though I tried very hard to breathe her into reality, Trina never quite materialized into a full being – she stayed on the sidelines of my life. Dr. Steinfeld told me that Trina was premature. Which made me, again, question the difference between waiting for the right time and procrastination. Unfortunately, I still don’t know the answer.
When I retired, Steinfeld retired too. He sent me a young friend whom I named Isabelle. She is a real doll with an imagined life. Blond hair and gray eyes. Thirty six inches tall. While Steinfeld answered serious questions, Isabelle only discusses fun things like button collections and pets and the color of cornflowers. Sometimes, when I force her to think like an adult, she gets upset and tells me to leave her alone. She is, so I tell everybody, my inner child. Her role is to let me remember the curiosity of my childhood. Her teaching is laughter.
I love all the imagined roles I play. I know they are temporary; new ones come up when it is time to move on. Which seemed to happen just a few months ago when I first contemplated a trip to England and Hadrian’s Wall. I found a new friend. His name is Barnsie the Noble Bear. Though he has the body of a teddy bear, he too is a fictional teacher. He insisted that he would replace my travel companion, Sami Lucius Putnam, the stuffed frog. Sami is a timid traveler, hiding in my luggage, leaving me to fend for myself in strange cities. Most of the photographs I have of him are poses in hotel rooms, overlooking room service orders, guarding my keys, maps, and watch. Then he decided to stay home. He said he is going to play the violin instead of traveling with me. Apparently I insulted him with my remarks about his size. Really. He is too small to pose in front of a museum. His eyes bulge. He doesn’t own any clothes except his dining suit.
Barnsie the Noble Bear is a literary agent and an editor of sorts. He is definitely very outgoing. Almost pushy. I assumed he would teach me the art of travel writing. Barnsie promised to give me a well-rounded approach to walking the countryside and reporting on it. He would ride on my backpack and watch the scenery as it passes.
“Hindsight,” he insisted, “lasts longer than foresight.”
I told him that I prefer to see new faces approaching me. I don’t want to watch people fade into the vanishing point. I realized there would be some battles. He shortens my sentences. Already he asked me to set up a file folder for him on my laptop computer. “Simultaneous entries,” he hinted. And he chuckled when I told him I hate editors.
“You’ll love the changes I am going to make,” he promised. “You’ll be glad when strangers come up to us and take our picture. We’ll be digitized. We’ll be famous.”
“Oh yes, we’ll be famous.” I quipped. “Barnsie and Cloud dined at Milecastle Inn last night.”
Pretending to read a newspaper he responded, “ Barnsie the Noble Bear and his companion were sighted at Chesters Roman Fort. He rode in comfort while she limped into the Passport Stamping Station, where she applied moleskin to a blister on her left heel.”
We both laughed. Dr. Steinfeld wrote about him last Christmas from his retreat in the small Bavarian town of Kochel. Yes, he still gives advice, though he insists that I no longer need his guidance. “Dear Gisela,” he said in his letter, “Maybe now is the right time for you to take a look at the humorous side of life. Hire my friend Barnsie as guide on your next trip. He boasts and shows off his cleverness at every opportunity he gets. I know you hate this kind of arrogance but look at it as a challenge. A timed experiment. The two of you face life from different angles. Is that so unusual? Just promise to think about it for now. When you return I’d love to know how it worked out.”
Well, Doctor, it didn’t work out. My initial idea of taking along the Barnes and Noble Bear was abandoned after a while. First, he is way too big. He doesn’t fit into my suitcase and he adds two pounds to my backpack. The second reason is his arrogance. I thought I could develop him into a somewhat petulant overly sensitive, intelligent character who would stimulate my senses. I found him overbearing and excused my change of heart with his business association. I didn’t really want to walk alongside history, advertising America’s #1 bookseller.
Finally I met a cute little bear at a local yardage shop. A narrow ribbon around the neck was her only adornment. I paid for her, tied her to my backpack and walked home. On the way we passed Ebay Park where I named her and took the first photographs of her. I called her Tyana (she is a Ty bear) J (Java is her Ty name) LittleString. She is what I needed at the time, a companion who had no prior attachments to my household. She is also very limber and though she is 14 inches tall she weighs only one pound fully dressed.
As any artist can tell you, wild images roam through our minds especially in the dawn hours. Sometimes I can barely stand it, this delicious tension just before daylight forces me to open my eyes. I have to slow down the film rolling past my eyes, slow down the urge to create whatever the night has planted in my heart, slow down the swing that bounces my body out of bed. I am possessed. I can see this little bear as the next literary character of note.
Tyana’s first week with me transformed her into a well-dressed young lady, ready to travel the world. She took on a personality that is totally opposite the one I had given Barnsie. My guess is that I am not ready for arrogance. Will I ever be?
I knitted, crochet, and sewed six outfits for her. Gave her a portfolio of eight by tens. Wrote her into my journal. I adopted Tyana J LittleString. Then a funny thing happened. Samy the frog became jealous. Suddenly he decided he would join us in our walk. He had an alley in my daughter who is anything but a friend of my menagerie. Sometimes I think my daughter hesitates to bring friends into my house because of my obsessions; exactly the way I felt about my mother until I slid down the forty something ladder and became – who else – my mother. My daughter was surprised that Samy would have to stay home.
“But Mom” she said, “he has gone everywhere with you. Morocco, Egypt, China. You don’t want to leave him home, do you?”
“Well, I guess not.” The problem is space, in my backpack and in my mind. Can I deal with two voices at the same time? But then, his voice might be helpful in overcoming the hesitations I hear from friends.
“You are walking by yourself? Aren’t you afraid? What if something happens to you?”
No, I wasn’t afraid. I have thought this out carefully. Countours Walking, a travel company in England, provided me with all the necessary details. We added three museum days to the original ten walking days. I had reservations for 13 nights; they sent a guidebook – the same one I had already read twice – a detailed map, and a folder full of information and instructions. My suitcase would be transported from one place to the next each morning. Somebody would search for me should I get lost and be late. I have a whistle and a compass.
Tentative, like a weekend gardener, I walk the perimeter. I drag out a hoe, a shovel, pruning shears. A deep breath, a few cautious steps into the tangle of weeds and then a peek at the blue eye of a cornflower. I am ready to plant my story.
My writing includes a lot of dishwashing, walking, piddling, CNN background noise, and to stay with the garden metaphor, a lot of manure. All this and hours in front of the computer screen.
I want be a travel writer. I imagine I have to be a mobile gardener. Not only will I have to be proficient with the tools and terms of the essay, I have to be alert on the road. Observe things. Write them down. Elicit responses from deep down and from around me. I have devised a set of lists that need to accompany my first steps into the field.
Before any trip my foremost concerns are with factual, physical, and emotional preparedness. Travel demands plans and the willingness to throw them overboard. Writing demands structure and the boldness to ignore it. I am excited to embark on this double adventure. I am thrilled that my first attempt will be the exploration of Hadrian’s Wall – a long distance walk through Roman past and British modernity. Bed and Breakfast near the Vallum. A hop, skip, and jump past hedgerows and dry stone walls. A longing look into pastoral distances. Museums, forts, and of course the WALL. I will follow in the footsteps of a second century world power. In case my feet don’t work out as planned, there is always line AD122, public transportation along the path.
AD122 is one of the things I discovered during extensive web searches. Another is the BBC weather forecast. The bus schedule makes me happy. The weather is unpredictable. Both components are important to the success of my journey; the first as alternate transportation the second as wayfarer warning. I found out that Wiliam Hutton, one of the 19th century walkers we know about, seems to have speculated a lot about the history of the wall; he seems to have made mistakes in his assumptions. My trip would depend on the most up to date guide book – the official “Hadrian’s Wall Path’ by Anthony Burton. I have read it once already; now I am making notes, print out parts, construct a continuous picture in my mind. In the late hours, just before falling asleep, I wander on my imaginary path, happily marching to the literary voice of my leader.
Hadrian’s Wall Path is a National Trail and according to the preface to the guidebook walking the whole length along a ‘specified route’ has not been possible since the fifth century when Roman occupation ended. With the opening of the National Trail in 2003 I now will be able to walk from Wallsend – between Tynemouth and Newcastle close to the North Sea – all the way to Bowness-on-Solway by the Irish Sea – 84 miles of ever changing terrain over flatland, near rivers, through fields, woods, towns and villages and over crags.
Travel accounts confirm the fact that anticipation and reality of travel are usually far apart. We formulate an ideal picture or we might even, in a regretful hour, envision disaster. All in all it is rare that the preview our thoughts speculate on are in unison with the experience that awaits us.
For the writer this might even be impossible. Not a day goes by without imagination’s wildest input. I have read books, studied maps, consulted the Internet. I have bought a compass, a whistle, walking sox, and a blister kit. I should, I think, be prepared for anything.
Anything the 84-mile hike along an ancient Roman fortification might present me with. I am ready for Hadrian’s Wall.
Though I carefully planned my wardrobe to take up the least amount of space, and I have made copies of travel papers and have envisioned a plan B for most occasions, the major amount of my time has gone into dialog with potential companions.
I am quite serious about this. I am contemplating as much a literary device as a conversation piece. Last but not least I need an uncommon companion as teacher. Let me explain.
When I was young I wandered through life uninstructed. My real education didn’t begin until I was forty-five - after a sad divorce - during a complicated love affair. I began to sort through the ruins of my self-esteem. Somebody had to tell me who I was. Somebody who would correct my thinking but wouldn’t punish me for past mistakes.
I invented Dr. Steinfeld. My imaginary shrink was the first of several guardians I made up over the years. Dr. Steinfeld educated me from the inside out by allowing me to accept some questions as unanswerable. I imagine we all have teachers in us – roles we explore as we go along – in order to survive. I just happen to give mine names. Bring them to life. Like some files on my computer, the psychiatrist’s teaching role was hidden and only surfaced when a serious attempt was made to destroy my mental well-being. Suddenly I was drawn into a crash course of identifying and locating the tools that would free me. At my computer I never fail to be impressed with the results of explorations into unfamiliar software. In my personal confrontation with impending doom, at forty-five, I accepted the notion of an invisible psychiatrist with some reservations. Now, at 65, I am no longer surprised by the arrival of new teachers.
Dr. Steinfeld served as my mentor for almost twenty years. I wrote to him, talked to him, frowned at him in the mirror, and at least once I dreamt of him as if he were a real person. He had two helpers – Madam X, a mannequin, whom I call my immortal sister and Laura Spencer, my more carefree, spirited alter ego. Madam X became the center of essays and poems I wrote. At a time when I questioned the sagging and wrinkling of my own body, she stood in as a shining example of perfection. Now I no longer depend on her beauty for consolation. She stands silently in my spare room, still wearing her mysterious look, yet no longer endowed with special qualities. And Laura Spencer – figment of my literary imagination – kept track of all the secrets I was not able to write about in my own journal. A third person account of first person remembrances.
One day my imaginary shrink suggested an imaginary island community. I invented Easter Island as home for a band of stuffed rabbits. I sewed day and night to fulfill their group experience. They were a self-reliant and ambitious bunch of furry friends who taught me to accept their varied characters and appearances. They insisted on a history and a scrapbook full of photographs. Alfie, Oliver, Kate, Cocoapuff, Grandpa Woodie, Uncle Elmo, Morgan Cloud, Jason Rocky and all the others. When they had given me all that I needed, they walked off into a homeless shelter to amuse a group of lonely children.
After Easter Island I made up Tiny Trina – the child of the sacred mountains – a spiritual guide surrounded by night shadows and flaming candles. Though I tried very hard to breathe her into reality, Trina never quite materialized into a full being – she stayed on the sidelines of my life. Dr. Steinfeld told me that Trina was premature. Which made me, again, question the difference between waiting for the right time and procrastination. Unfortunately, I still don’t know the answer.
When I retired, Steinfeld retired too. He sent me a young friend whom I named Isabelle. She is a real doll with an imagined life. Blond hair and gray eyes. Thirty six inches tall. While Steinfeld answered serious questions, Isabelle only discusses fun things like button collections and pets and the color of cornflowers. Sometimes, when I force her to think like an adult, she gets upset and tells me to leave her alone. She is, so I tell everybody, my inner child. Her role is to let me remember the curiosity of my childhood. Her teaching is laughter.
I love all the imagined roles I play. I know they are temporary; new ones come up when it is time to move on. Which seemed to happen just a few months ago when I first contemplated a trip to England and Hadrian’s Wall. I found a new friend. His name is Barnsie the Noble Bear. Though he has the body of a teddy bear, he too is a fictional teacher. He insisted that he would replace my travel companion, Sami Lucius Putnam, the stuffed frog. Sami is a timid traveler, hiding in my luggage, leaving me to fend for myself in strange cities. Most of the photographs I have of him are poses in hotel rooms, overlooking room service orders, guarding my keys, maps, and watch. Then he decided to stay home. He said he is going to play the violin instead of traveling with me. Apparently I insulted him with my remarks about his size. Really. He is too small to pose in front of a museum. His eyes bulge. He doesn’t own any clothes except his dining suit.
Barnsie the Noble Bear is a literary agent and an editor of sorts. He is definitely very outgoing. Almost pushy. I assumed he would teach me the art of travel writing. Barnsie promised to give me a well-rounded approach to walking the countryside and reporting on it. He would ride on my backpack and watch the scenery as it passes.
“Hindsight,” he insisted, “lasts longer than foresight.”
I told him that I prefer to see new faces approaching me. I don’t want to watch people fade into the vanishing point. I realized there would be some battles. He shortens my sentences. Already he asked me to set up a file folder for him on my laptop computer. “Simultaneous entries,” he hinted. And he chuckled when I told him I hate editors.
“You’ll love the changes I am going to make,” he promised. “You’ll be glad when strangers come up to us and take our picture. We’ll be digitized. We’ll be famous.”
“Oh yes, we’ll be famous.” I quipped. “Barnsie and Cloud dined at Milecastle Inn last night.”
Pretending to read a newspaper he responded, “ Barnsie the Noble Bear and his companion were sighted at Chesters Roman Fort. He rode in comfort while she limped into the Passport Stamping Station, where she applied moleskin to a blister on her left heel.”
We both laughed. Dr. Steinfeld wrote about him last Christmas from his retreat in the small Bavarian town of Kochel. Yes, he still gives advice, though he insists that I no longer need his guidance. “Dear Gisela,” he said in his letter, “Maybe now is the right time for you to take a look at the humorous side of life. Hire my friend Barnsie as guide on your next trip. He boasts and shows off his cleverness at every opportunity he gets. I know you hate this kind of arrogance but look at it as a challenge. A timed experiment. The two of you face life from different angles. Is that so unusual? Just promise to think about it for now. When you return I’d love to know how it worked out.”
Well, Doctor, it didn’t work out. My initial idea of taking along the Barnes and Noble Bear was abandoned after a while. First, he is way too big. He doesn’t fit into my suitcase and he adds two pounds to my backpack. The second reason is his arrogance. I thought I could develop him into a somewhat petulant overly sensitive, intelligent character who would stimulate my senses. I found him overbearing and excused my change of heart with his business association. I didn’t really want to walk alongside history, advertising America’s #1 bookseller.
Finally I met a cute little bear at a local yardage shop. A narrow ribbon around the neck was her only adornment. I paid for her, tied her to my backpack and walked home. On the way we passed Ebay Park where I named her and took the first photographs of her. I called her Tyana (she is a Ty bear) J (Java is her Ty name) LittleString. She is what I needed at the time, a companion who had no prior attachments to my household. She is also very limber and though she is 14 inches tall she weighs only one pound fully dressed.
As any artist can tell you, wild images roam through our minds especially in the dawn hours. Sometimes I can barely stand it, this delicious tension just before daylight forces me to open my eyes. I have to slow down the film rolling past my eyes, slow down the urge to create whatever the night has planted in my heart, slow down the swing that bounces my body out of bed. I am possessed. I can see this little bear as the next literary character of note.
Tyana’s first week with me transformed her into a well-dressed young lady, ready to travel the world. She took on a personality that is totally opposite the one I had given Barnsie. My guess is that I am not ready for arrogance. Will I ever be?
I knitted, crochet, and sewed six outfits for her. Gave her a portfolio of eight by tens. Wrote her into my journal. I adopted Tyana J LittleString. Then a funny thing happened. Samy the frog became jealous. Suddenly he decided he would join us in our walk. He had an alley in my daughter who is anything but a friend of my menagerie. Sometimes I think my daughter hesitates to bring friends into my house because of my obsessions; exactly the way I felt about my mother until I slid down the forty something ladder and became – who else – my mother. My daughter was surprised that Samy would have to stay home.
“But Mom” she said, “he has gone everywhere with you. Morocco, Egypt, China. You don’t want to leave him home, do you?”
“Well, I guess not.” The problem is space, in my backpack and in my mind. Can I deal with two voices at the same time? But then, his voice might be helpful in overcoming the hesitations I hear from friends.
“You are walking by yourself? Aren’t you afraid? What if something happens to you?”
No, I wasn’t afraid. I have thought this out carefully. Countours Walking, a travel company in England, provided me with all the necessary details. We added three museum days to the original ten walking days. I had reservations for 13 nights; they sent a guidebook – the same one I had already read twice – a detailed map, and a folder full of information and instructions. My suitcase would be transported from one place to the next each morning. Somebody would search for me should I get lost and be late. I have a whistle and a compass.
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