Short­ly after my return Down South this Sep­tem­ber, I received a let­ter from my friend Sarah. A real, hon­est-to-good­ness let­ter: USPS-ush­ered from Seat­tle to Belling­ham, turquoise enve­lope dou­ble-stamped in hon­or of its heft. The card was love­ly (whale, octo­pus, sea hors­es and fish min­gling beneath a sail­boat anchored on a calm sea) and bulging with four addi­tion­al sheets, hand­writ­ten on the bare back­sides of Sarah’s suc­cess­ful­ly sub­mit­ted man­u­script. (“For luck.”)

Let­ters are one of boat life’s best side effects. Removed from the imme­di­a­cy of the inter­nets, I embrace the inti­ma­cy of old-fash­ioned cor­re­spon­dence to feel con­nect­ed with the peo­ple I car­ry with me at sea. Last sum­mer, Sarah was one of those peo­ple. I sent her a card con­grat­u­lat­ing her on her fin­ished man­u­script, and asked if she had any advice for me in my own march toward a dead­line. I want to share her words with you, with grat­i­tude for her permission.

Dar­ling Tele, I can’t tell you what a gift it was to find your let­ter in the mail­box the oth­er day! But I’m going to try.

 

Ever since I hit that Aug. 1 dead­line for the book, I’ve been real­ly real­ly sad about my writ­ing life. It’s gone on the back burn­er again, essen­tial­ly, & there is so much I want to be work­ing on – (an arti­cle, some essays, poet­ry, SUBMISSIONS), let alone build­ing a plat­form to mar­ket my baby (that ten year old beast of a book project) – but I’m not. 70% of that is the rest of my life crowd­ing back in – things I pushed out of the way (son, hus­band, dogs, home, work $, friends, gar­den, fam­i­ly) to hit my dead­line, that I dear­ly love or at least (wait­ress­ing) that I’ve got no choice but to give hours to. My writ­ing hours shrink & shrink, unless I give up more sleep. Not real­ly an option. Work­ing 4 or 5 nights at the Pub now, & watch­ing oth­er people’s kids to earn hours when they’ll watch mine.

 

Ugh! Sounds like a lot of whin­ing, & it is… But I hon­or the fact that it’s also my Sto­ry right now, & I real­ly do cher­ish all my work… It teach­es me what is most impor­tant to write about, when I can.

 

I said 70% of my lack of writ­ing progress is Rest-of-my-Life… & 20% exhaus­tion, & 10% fear & iso­la­tion. Which is where your bril­liant let­ter arrives in my mailbox.

 

I know I am a writer, because I have no choice but to write.

 

I know it is the same for you. That being said –

 

A part of me is always ter­ri­fied to let my words be pub­lic, because I’m ter­ri­fied it’s not good enough, clear enough, done enough. It must express what we mean for it to in our hearts, & it so rarely seems (to me) like I succeed.

Which is why I’m a revi­sion junkie. 🙂

 

Any­way, your let­ter was a tan­gi­ble piece of evi­dence that I am part of a com­mu­ni­ty of writ­ers, all labor­ing away at their own lives, striv­ing to keep tabs on their muse and their loved ones & their mort­gages, etc.

 

It was a life­line, sweetpea…

a ver­titable buoy on the end of a rope, with you on the oth­er end.

 

& NOW… inspired by your exam­ple, you coura­geous fish­er-poet nov­el­ist (what’s the word for writer-of-non-fic­tion-books?), I’ve just sat down & devot­ed an hour to writ­ing (despite an array of inter­rup­tions.)!! I took a writ­ing work­shop from David Peter­son (edit­ed Edward Abbey’s jour­nals) once at the North Cas­cades Insti­tute (have you been there to write? You would Love it) and he said Ed Abbey always wrote let­ters or post­cards to friends to get him­self into writ­ing mode. And so I have today resolved to write to you this fall & win­ter, Miz Tele, as part of my writ­ing prac­tice & also as an act of sup­port & love for you as you labor toward your May 27 deadline.

 

You ask if i have any advice… not much, most­ly just empa­thy. But if I had to give some right now, I’d say…

Labor steadi­ly, just as you would on the Ner­ka at busy times,

Give your body & mind over to the mus­cle mem­o­ry of the task at hand.

Hit that groove & the words will come

& Remem­ber to step back qua­si-reg­u­lar­ly for some fresh air, love­mak­ing, music, food, to nur­ture yourself.

 

xox­oxo

Sarah

I’ve kept Sarah’s let­ter close at hand for the past two months, smil­ing at that cheery turquoise enve­lope every time I sit down at my desk. It’s packed away now, one of the many tokens of luck and love that I’ll car­ry with me up to NCI today. The car is stuffed so full that I’m equal parts embar­rassed and curi­ous, won­der­ing how Subi will make it up the steep­er bits of the dri­ve. Turns out, prepar­ing for a three month res­i­den­cy in the moun­tains is very sim­i­lar to prepar­ing for a fish­ing season.

This is how I learned to work: watch­ing my par­ents attack the task at hand with the tenac­i­ty of pit bulls. (Inel­e­gant, yet accu­rate. The last boat they would build togeth­er, a fiber­glass 54-foot­er, they took from a bare hull to ready-to-fish troller in nine months. Sim­ple enough; that was what need­ed to be done. They chris­tened the Willie Lee II after an equal­ly goal-ori­ent­ed friend who, inci­den­tal­ly, raised pit bulls.)

My par­ents’ meth­ods got the jobs done, but at a cost. Each com­plet­ed task was an increas­ing­ly lone­ly suc­cess. Sarah’s gen­tle reminder to take time to step back, to nur­ture? I’m still learn­ing how to approach work as a bal­anced prac­tice. Edward Abbey might be one of the teachers.

Hooked will be a ghost town this win­ter. NCI has the inter­net, but I’ve dis­abled my laptop’s access and will insti­tute some strict rules about using their library com­put­ers. Old school, hand to pen to paper let­ter-writ­ing, though? That seems a step towards bal­ance. A way to remind my loved ones and myself we’re con­nect­ed – even when we’re not. A tool to keep my writ­ing mind work­ing – even when I’m not.

If you’d like to be part of this, here’s my res­i­den­cy address:

Tele Aad­sen

c/o ELC

PO Box 429

Mar­ble­mount, WA 98267

Okay, sweet­ies… In the time it’s tak­en me to write this, the sun has melt­ed all of the night’s frost from the trees out­side our kitchen win­dow, and the chick­adees have made a good dent in the suet log. (Joel, will you take care of the feed­ers while I’m gone? I know the squir­rels’ greed irri­tates you, but everybody’s got­ta eat. Thanks, bud­dy.) It’s a two hour dri­ve up to my new home, and I can’t delay leav­ing any longer.

Take good care, friends, and be well –

T

P.S. That love­ly woman who sent such gen­er­ous, heart­felt words? Sarah and I have nev­er actu­al­ly met. These friend­ships we cre­ate out here are pow­er­ful and real. I’m grate­ful to every one of you who’s helped teach me that.