I was recently able to make a mini-writing retreat out of a trip I took for work. Mind you, this was no ordinary business trip, but rather a research expedition in the Aegean Sea off the coast of Turkey. I had secret hopes before I left that I would be able to take some time to write while I was on the ship, away from the demands of my regular work schedule and my life as a wife and mother of two young daughters. So before I left, I made sure to pack my notes for the portion of my memoir that I am working on and my computer, of course.
And then I did something that turned out to be especially fortuitous. I copied onto my iPod some old cd’s of music that I hadn’t listened to in decades – cd’s that I had bought years ago of old albums that my father, who died when I was eleven, had loved. And while I was locked in my cabin working on my book, I listened over and over again to the songs that my father listened to – old Simon & Garfunkel tunes like “The Boxer” and “The Only Living Boy in New York” and Gordon Lightfoot’s “If You Could Read My Mind” and “Carefree Highway”.
And finally, away from my busy life in the 21st century, locked away for hours with only the sensation of a gently rocking sea, listening to music from four decades ago, I felt I was finally able to remember my father accurately and to capture a part of him on the pages of my book – both his positive and negative aspects – something I had been unable to do before this. It cost about a thousand tears, but hopefully the effort will be evident in the pages I wrote. And not to worry, every couple hours I took a break from writing and joined my ship mates for meals and/or conversation – and they were completely unaware of the strains of Gordon Lightfoot running through my head.
Memory is an odd thing. It can be so elusive at times, and then brought to the fore by the most unexpected things – a line of a song, an old photograph, the smell of stale cigarette smoke, the sight of a piece of fabric. If you think about it though, each person can probably isolate the items that can bring them back to a particular time or place. A savvy writer can use these as tools to conjure up a particular scene, a snippet of dialogue, or even just a mood. Make sure you have them handy as you attempt to turn each day into your own mini-writing retreat.
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