Posted by Kathleen Pooler/@kathypooler with Kristen Lodge/@kristenlodge
” Tell me the landscape in which you live,and I’ll tell you who you are.” -Jose Ortega Y Gassett (Continental Quotient, page 19)
I am very pleased to feature Memoir Author Kristen Lodge in this guest post on writing memory and personal history. Kristen’s memoir, Continental Quotient: Stories From Both Sides of the Divide published by Homebound Publications, addresses the power of place in memoir.
My reviews can be found on Amazon and Goodreads.
Welcome, Kristen!
Memoir on Place: Writing memory and personal history.
The longing to go west began when I was a senior in high school. I wanted to see The West: Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming. I wanted to know that Western smell: Colorado sage and the Arizona desert after the rain.
Before I got to know the sights and spells of the west I read Wallace Stegner and Edward Abbey. They taught me about the West and I fell in love with it even before I glimpsed the first white mountain peaks in Colorado. I realize now, after almost ten years of living in the west, that for a good part of 25 years I have been reading and writing about these places as required reading for my life.
These writers taught me to get to know a landscape and understand its people. They taught me to write about the forms, the colors and the light.
It is only now that I can reflect back and think about what my adventures in the mountains means by writing my life stories. I never knew anyone who had the same dreams so I was alone in seeking out the mountain landscapes I wanted to live in. It was only when I moved to my first mountain town, Bethel, Maine, in 1999 that I started to write the stories. Once I moved to my second western mountain town, Granby, Colorado, living close to wilderness and wildlife, seemingly isolated from the world, the fierce drive to make meaning from stories began.
In the effort to tap my memory I realized that I brought home with me every place I went. But I also suffered in my alone-ness and my stories began to be about putting one foot in front of the other, making plans, and surviving. Living in a beautiful remote place helped ease the pain and in the face of disaster, writing and telling stories helped.
Writing memoir helps me to work out the troubled relationships, honor my family and most of all, reminds me what is important. The beauty of writing memoir is making the commonplace memorable through life’s catastrophes, love loss, job loss, money problems, anguish, and confusion. How to tell that story is the crux of every writer in the history of mankind.
I live now in Tucson, Arizona; farther west than I’ve ever been. I can see what happened more clearly with the time and distance perspective. I realize I have a lot of experience with not knowing where I’m going, vulnerability, and living with uncertainty.
I write the stories of people getting hurt, finding amazing friends, moving on and finding new places.
Along this journey I have met people who confirm many truths I have come to know. You live your life and you are kind. You find your people over and over again.
The most important thing is to keep focused on what you know is true and the truth evolves over time and space. But oh – what a journey.
Available on Amazon.com, BN.com and Homebound Publications website: http://homeboundpublications.com/continental-quotient-bookstore/
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Thank you Kristen for taking us on your journey of the heart across this beautiful country and leading us to your place of truth and peace.
Author Bio:
Kristen grew up in Plattsburgh, New York and Rye, New Hampshire. She earned a BA in English from the University of New Hampshire. From 1999 to 2012 she lived in ski towns in northern New England and Colorado including Killington, Vermont, Bethel, Maine, Steamboat Springs, Colo., and Granby near Winter Park, Colo. She now lives near the Tucson desert with her dogs: Daisy and Winnie.
Kristen is an outdoor adventurer; hiking, competing in road and mountain biking races, triathlon, and trail running. Exploring the outdoor world is part of her everyday life and is reflected in much of her work. She has published several poems and stories in anthologies, literary magazines and online publications including Wilderness House Literary Review, Press Pause Moments: Essays About Life Transitions by Women Writers, NPR’s: This I Believe, Diverse Voices Quarterly, and River Poets Journal. For four years she wrote a weekly outdoor column for a community newspaper in Grand County, Colorado writing about skiing, hiking, poetry, environmental issues, sports, historical preservation, and interviewed several adventurers from Colorado.
Author Contact Information:
Kristen Lodge www.kristenlodge.com
Outdoor Blog www.kristenlodge.blogspot.com
Twitter@kristenlodge
Pinterest for Book: http://www.pinterest.com/kristenlodge/continental-quotient-stories-from-both-sides-of-th/
Memoir Excerpt:
From Stories from 8,000 Feet:
A mule deer herd wanders around the hills across the street from my house that will soon be a new development filled with houses and people. For now I walk my dogs on these vacant roads with mountains surrounding me. Down the road is a trail to a fishing cabin President Eisenhower used when he came to Grand County, Colorado many years ago; it’s dilapidated now. As I hike around my neighborhood I remember the warnings about mountain lions and hope I never see one. This is another sign that I’m in the right place; more wildlife, less people.
If a place can influence who you are and what you become, it is the mountains towns I’ve lived in during the last ten years that has defined me. When I was 16 I discovered Robert Frost’s poem, Escapist – Never. I wrote out the poem on lined paper and tacked it to my wall in my bedroom.
“His life is a pursuit of a pursuit forever/It is his future that creates his present.”
It took me a long time to finally find a place where I feel connected and grounded; no longer pursuing that “thing” out there in the future. I don’t know how long I will live here; I still don’t know if I can live in one place for a lifetime. For now I feel like I’m in the right place.
As the sun sets behind the rolling sage-filled hills to the west, a red fox with a bushy tail runs across the field going back to his den in the culvert behind my house where just last week I saw a kit peek its head out; hair on that tiny head springing out in every direction. That little fox just stared at me in wonder. I in turn stare into the horizon with the same kind of wonder at what is next. As the sky becomes a darker blue by the minutes, and bright stars gradually fill the sky, I feel lucky, safe, and finally, fulfilled.
How about you? What do you call place home where you feel “lucky, safe and fulfilled?”
Kristen and her publisher, Leslie M Browning of Homebound Publications have generously agreed to offer a copy of Continental Quotient to a lucky commenter whose name will be selected in a random drawing.
We’d love to hear from you. Please leave your comments below~
ANNOUNCEMENT: Congratulations, Sarah Freeman! Your name was selected in a random drawing of commenters to win Bryan Cohen’s book: 1000 Creative Writing Prompts.
This week:
Thursday, 12/12/13:
” How What We Learned in the ’60s and ’70s is Important to Women Today.” A Wow! Women on Writing Blog Tour with a guest post by Merimee Moffitt, Winner of First Honorable Mention, Poetry for the anthology, Times They Were A-Changing: Women Remember the ’60s and ’70s
Hi Kristin,
I love the West, too, and wrote about it in my memoir, Morning at Wellington Square – living for a year in Tucson, the sunsets, the Santa Catalina Mountains and the pull the West had on my spirit and soul. I’ll be out in Tucson for several weeks beginning January 15. Love to connect with you there and share coffee and talk memoir. Susan
Hi Susan, Thank you for your comments. I will check out your book and would love to meet for coffee when you are in Tucson. I’m still getting to know Tucson and would love to know your favorite places.
Kristen
Dear Susan and Kristen, I love that these connections are happening! Have a wonderful visit together in sunny, warm Tucson. Wish I could join you. You both will enjoy each other’s memoirs. 🙂
Kristin,
Place has alway influenced how I live and how I feel. Fortunately, I’ve been able to wander as well and live in close proximity to the natural world. I’m an east coast person in love with our smaller but older mountains and the call of the sea. Thanks for your lovely writing about the west. I’ll need to explore it more than I’ve been able to.
Joan, You capture the beauty of the East(“smaller mountains and call of the sea”) like Kristen captures the beauty of the West. How fortunate you have both explored and appreciate the beauty of our country. Thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts.
Joan, I hope you are able to visit the west and go see all the small mountain communities that have so much spirit. The National Parks of the West are excellent too.
Thank you for commenting.
I also share a strong sense of place, and have lived in quite a variety: the mountains of New Mexico, Boston, Washington desert, Pittsburgh, each so different. What I’ve noticed over many decades now is that once you leave, you can never go back. It changes the minute you drive away. Thank heaven for stories to capture and process what was!
Wow, so true, Sharon. The stories really do keep the places alive. I didn’t realize you had lived in so many different places. You’re all the richer for it and it comes out in your writing. I’m thinking of the impact the Southwest has had on your taste buds as you show so vividly in your new book, The Adventures of a Chilehead!
When I wrote about our year in Belize, my first editor said, “You’ve turned Belize into a character,” which she meant as a compliment. I needed to hear that as my “real” characters weren’t developed. So I guess place is important to me and now I think I view Orange County as a character as well. Perhaps I’m overly influenced by the people in OC, and they define the place.
Thanks for sharing Kristen’s interview.
That is such an interesting perspective, Sonia–place becomes a character. You certainly bring it alive in your memoir,“Freeway to Flip-Flops”. Kristen does a great job showing us the power of place through her longing for the West as you did in bringing Belize alive to us. I keep remembering the storm and those bugs, along with the turquoise water and sandy beaches! So glad you enjoyed Kristen’s story.
In all good writing about place and landscape, the setting becomes a character. I’m influenced by all the people I have known especially the ones who have lived for a long time in the places I only lived a short while. The ones who stay despite the low temperatures and limited access to shopping and dining are the heros.
Thanks for writing.
Kristen
I love stories with a strong sense of place, and Willa Cather is the author who taught me how to love both the prairie and the West. Kristen, good for you for following your dream and writing about it. I love the energy in your work. I also love the same mountains Joan spoke of above. I am located in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and wrote these words as the brilliant red sun spread out over the western sky. No snowy peaks, but many shades of blue and purple along those ridges!
What a lovely image you have shared of your Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, Shirley!
I know the longing Kristen feels. Below is a brief excerpt from one of my memoirs-in-progress:
I am of a Mayflower moving van, uprooted from rustling wheat fields and unrelenting August sun and powdery Palouse soil—and transplanted in dense damp forests and deep fern fronds.
I am of earthquakes and volcanoes and late-November windstorms.
I am of tangles of Oregon grape and salal, of tulips and daffodils and slimy black slugs.
I am of untamed blackberry vines and emerald grass and mountains reaching heaven,
of moss and mist and salt-sea air,
of foghorns and ferryboats and salmon sizzling over driftwood-and-seaweed beachfires,
of seashells and seagulls and countless hours combing the beach.…
What lovely images of all the places you’ve lived, Linda. Thanks so much for sharing your excerpt. It definitely makes me want to keep reading!
A lesser known Western author was Ellen Meloy. One of her four books was a Pulitzer Prize Finalist, and after she died suddenly her friends established the Desert Writers’ Fund in her honor; it funds writers working out of a strong sense of place. Ellen’s ‘place’ was the Colorado Plateau, especially along the Green River, which she ‘ran’ every summer with her BLM Ranger husband. Reading her account is almost as good as being there yourself! I tried to create the same experience with my forthcoming book, Chewing Sand, An Eco-Spiritual Taste of the Mojave Desert. My secret wish is that if/when enough readers really come to appreciate Place, we humans will get serious about respecting and protecting our Earth.
Welcome, Gail! Thanks for stopping by and for sharing your thought-provoking comments on the power of place in story. As writers, I feel it is very important to be connected with our purpose for writing. I can see by your description of your book, Chewing Sand, An Eco-Spiritual Taste if the Mojave Desert.,that your connection to your purpose for writing is strong. I especially appreciate your last sentence about respecting and protecting our Earth.
Kristin, I love that sense of place that we carry with us in our sensory memories. I grew up in TN but in 1983 my second husband and I moved right through the west to the Pacific NW. These is now my place, but the summer smells of new mown grass, honeysuckle on the back fence, and the succulent smell of climbing roses on the wall take me back to my childhood home immediately. These are things we can’t be deprived of — they become a living part of us. Your memoir sounds wonderful, and your sharing here has given me insight to some things I need to take care with as I move forward in writing my own. Thank you for sharing!
Kathy, once again you’ve managed to provide another nugget of memoir writing education by hosting Kristin today. Thanks so much!
You’re most welcome, Sherrey, Your description of the scents-often the hardest to capture in prose– “becoming a living part of us”is beautiful. I’m so happy you gained some insights into your own memoir writing after reading Kristen’s post. I know you will enjoy her memoir as well. Thanks so much, as always, for stopping by and sharing your insights.