My Favorite Poem: Herbsttag by Rainer Maria Rilke

Today is the last day of November, high time to share with you my favorite poem, Herbsttag (Autumn Day) by Rainer Maria Rilke. Many of you probably know him as the author of Letters to a Young Poet, a classic in the literature about writing and finding a vocation. However, Rilke is one of the “big guys” of German literature, and I find something I respond to in most of his many, many poems.

I fell in love with Autumn Day as an adolescent, leafing through one of my grandparents’ anthologies of German poetry, and I made sure that particular book made it to my bookshelf after my grandmother died. It is now a beloved yellowed friend. As I paged through it yesterday, I wondered about its history, and wished I knew why my grandparents had this particular one. It was published in 1955 but there’s no dedication in it, nor is my grandfather’s name on the list of editors (it is in many other books they had). Maybe this anthology had less meaning to them than it has to me now.

I looked long for a translation that I felt comes close to the original German, particularly the last stanza, which is the part I really cherish. I think I fell in love with the phrase "lange Briefe schreiben" (write long letters) as that is exactly what I did as a teenager, but those last five lines capture the melancholy of autumn so perfectly. I was reminded again that translation is always, at best, an approximation. For example, the word “Alleen” means roads lined with trees on both sides. In German “Alleen” immediately conjures up that image – in English, no such word exists. Anyway, enough waxing, here it is, first in the original, then the translation.

Herbsttag

Herr: es ist Zeit. Der Sommer war sehr groß.
Leg deinen Schatten auf die Sonnenuhren,
und auf den Fluren laß die Winde los.

Befiel den letzten Früchten voll zu sein;
gib ihnen noch zwei südlichere Tage,
dränge sie zur Vollendung hin und jage
die letzte Süße in den schweren Wein.

Wer jetzt kein Haus hat, baut sich keines mehr.
Wer jetzt allein ist, wird es lange bleiben,
wird wachen, lesen, lange Briefe schreiben
und wird in den Alleen hin und her
unruhig wandern, wenn die Blätter treiben.

                        Rainer Maria Rilke

This translation is by J. Mullen:

Autumn Day

Lord: it is time. The summer was great.
Lay your shadows onto the sundials
and let loose the winds upon the fields.

Command the last fruits to be full,
give them yet two more southern days,
urge them to perfection, and chase
the last sweetness into the heavy wine.

Who now has no house, builds no more.
Who is now alone, will long remain so,
will stay awake, read, write long letters
and will wander restlessly here and there
in the avenues, when the leaves drift.

A Hot Chocolate Party in the Cold

This blog makes me do things, such as following through on fun schemes like having a hot chocolate party outside, in the cold. Our dotted pumpkin showed signs of wilting, so yesterday, when dinner wasn't quite ready yet as the kids got home, I decided to do the hot chocolate party while we still had the pumpkin as a lantern. The kids, of course, jump for hot chocolate any time, and as we sat outside, sipping hot chocolate and enjoying the scent of the pumpkin, we reminisced about how I first invented these parties when my son and I were visiting my in-laws in the winter 10 years ago, and we needed something to do to escape the smoky living room.

Here is what you need:

at least one child (an adult will do if he or she has a sense for whimsy)
a porch, balcony, or patio outside
a place for everyone to sit
cold weather, though preferably not wet
a late afternoon or early evening when it's already dark outside
a hurricane light or lantern
steaming hot chocolate (I make mine in a half liter pitcher with 2 tablespoons of cocoa and 4 teaspoons of sugar, which I dissolve in about a cup of boiling water, then fill up the pitcher with warm milk)
a mug for every attendee

Once you've set everything up, ask everybody to come and bring his or her coat, maybe even gloves, a hat and scarf. After all, this is about sitting outside when you usually wouldn't. Hot chocolate parties outside obviously don't last long, 10 minutes maybe, until the mugs are empty and everybody starts shivering, because, obviously, it's cold. But it's a lot of fun to enjoy the outside for a while, together, all bundled up.

Focus in Writing

Finding focus in our writing is a big challenge, especially when you're writing personal narrative. How do you whittle down a big life into one small story? My tips:

• Use a metaphor/vehicle
• Write a mission statement for your piece
• Give the most space in your piece to the main topic (i.e. don't let tangents take over the story)
• Set up the topic in the beginning
• Make sure the end delivers on the beginning

For a more wholesome treatment of this topic, and a bit of conference vibe, listen in on the recording of my session "Finding Focus" at the writersandcritters conference. If you have more questions on this pesky issue of focusing your writing, let me know!

In case you're wondering, at the beginning of my talk I am referring to the story "The Bed" by Diane Hurles.

That's me checking my notes during my presentation
of how to find focus in your writing.

A Dotted Lantern for Thanksgiving

Yes, I know, Thanksgiving is not Pumpkin Day, but I still had this pumpkin from our trip to the pumpkin farm, since I hadn't gotten around to carving it into the polka-dot lantern I plan to make every year. So yesterday, as I was contemplating our last pumpkins to turn into pie and soup, I simply could not chop this one up but rather took the time to carve it. The holes are punched, by the way, with a hole cutter from a Martha Stewart pumpkin carving kit that I bought years ago when Martha by Mail still existed. I fell in love with this simple design back then and still love it.

And maybe, after all the turkey and pie, there shall be a quiet moment tonight for that hot chocolate party from my fall list, out on the porch, with the grey-green pumpkin lantern and its orange dots glowing in the dark.

Blog Redesign

I've been tinkering with the design of my blog, so don't be shocked, please, when you visit and find a whole new look. The biggest change is the name of this blog: Following the advice of Kristen Lamb, whose blogging class I am currently taking (highly recommended for writers wanting to build an author brand!), this blog will simply be called "Annette Gendler." This won't affect you much, unless you are subscribing to an email feed, in which case the email should now be arriving from "Annette Gendler" and not "Memoir, Writing & Life."

I haven't decided yet whether I will keep "Memoir, Writing & Life" as a subtitle or tagline. I rather liked this blog name, but I also want to keep the Helene Hanff quote, and keeping both might get too busy. We shall see.

The other main change will be switching to a white background for easier readibility. I personally am in love with the photo overlay I have had, and the white font on dark background template, but I've heard one too many times from readers that it was too hard to read, and obviously a blog's main purpose is to be read!

Lastly, I want to thank Mary Bowers of Ideas with Ideas for her help in designing the banner - you're a whiz!

So, brace yourselves. And please let me know what you think of the new design once it happens, and if there's anything on this blog design-wise that you'd like to have that I currently don't have.

Photo Essay: Fall at the Beach

I love that living in Chicago means the beach is not only about summer.

Here's the concession stand at the Rogers Park Beach in October.

Here's that same stand a few weeks later. At the lake the leaves blow off fast, and the beach is getting ready for winter: See the half-completed snow fence to the right.

A few steps farther on, a look back: empty trees and poles in the sand for the snow fence.

Lovely combination, isn't it? Golden Ginko leaves and powdery sand.

The full fall panorama with the pale of the sand in October.

The light is still blinding at the beach, especially now when the sun hangs lower, but if you look closely, you can see the silhouettes of the downtown skyscrapers framed between the tree and the buildings in the foreground.

Even as we're enjoying the beach in the fall, there are still reminders of summer.

Tarot Cards for Brainstorming

Vain Regret: Of the cards
Shirley shared, this is my
favorite: Crying over
what's been spilled,
rather than seeing
what's still full.
Who hasn't done that?

Have you ever considered using Tarot cards to jump start your writing? Brainstorm ideas? Nudge your creativity? Me neither.

Which is why I was so intrigued by Shirley Lechter's presentation on "Brainstorming with Tarot" at the writersandcritters conference. So, as promised, following is a video of her presentation, slightly abridged by me. Please bear with the rough beginning as I had trouble getting all programs to work simultaneously in producing this, but it will give you a snippet of what our conference was like, and I dare say it will have you pondering the Tarot!

A big thank you to Shirley Lechter for sharing!

Photo Essay: Golden Streets

If it weren't for the leaf blowers, Chicago's streets would be paved in gold these days, as this sidewalk is, at least in one spot. I am somewhat infatuated with fall, so I'm sharing my marvel today at how the maple trees have bathed the streets in gold.

Lunt Avenue, west of Western

I love how my sideview mirror catches that tunnel of gold.

Brilliant color combinations like this can be spotted around any corner.

Here's why the sidewalk in front of our building is grey and empty, despite the glowing maple tree that sheds its abundance with every whiff of wind.

Why a Writers Residency is a Good Idea

The studios at VCCA are housed in the former barn
complex. During my second time there, we had
a terrific blizzard. This pictures shows the brilliant
day after the storm with more than a foot
of snow on the ground.

A student recently asked me whether I had ever done a residency, and if so, whether I found it useful, so I figured this would make a good blog post. I was fortunate enough to be awarded two residencies at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA), one in 2008, and one in 2010. Both residencies were magical experiences for me, certainly aided by the VCCA's idyllic setting in an old farm in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, where the residence hall, studios and grounds are well kept, and the gardens and forests surprise you with all kinds of sculptures and installations.

One of my favorite installations at VCCA is this
glass labyrinth in the garden, which was
even more fun to engage with in the snow.

Please note that I cannot speak for residencies at other institutions, although I have heard many good things, for instance, about Ragdale. My writer’s residencies at the VCCA exceeded my expectations, and here’s why:

A residency affords you uninterrupted time to write, or pursue your art. The biggest benefit for me at VCCA was not having to cook, and not having to shop for food, and not having to clean up. The only “household” thing I had to do was my laundry. It is amazing how much brain space frees up when you don’t have to tend to everyday life! I anticipated this and had specifically applied to a place that feeds you. Luckily, the VCCA feeds you well; they even have their own kitchen garden. Uninterrupted time is, of course, the main reason for seeking out a residency, and you will get that, unless you party all the time, which some people do, but the fellows at the VCCA were all dedicated to their work when I was there, and that was inspiring. I didn’t want to show up to dinner, and not have a good answer to: “So what did you do today?” This brings me to my next point:

My footsteps to my studio, which was actually a
composer's studio, and thus a freestanding hut
with a piano I had to water.

The Camaraderie of Other Artists Spurns You On. When I first inspected my studio, on the afternoon I arrived, I was intimidated: A whole big room just for me to write? A board hung by the door, bearing all the signatures of writers who’d been there before me. I recognized several names, former professors of mine among them, and I was even more intimidated. Then, the next morning, as I wandered over to my studio with all my equipment to move in (really just my laptop, and backup materials for my book), I saw others working away in their studios, especially the painter whose studio was across the walkway from mine, so I thought: “If these people can do it, work away, self-propelled, on whatever artistic project they are pursuing, then I can, too.” And so I did. I decided to follow Hemingsway’s example, and set a goal of 500 words for myself every day, and I made it.

You Make Amazing Connections. While I anticipated the bliss of having whole days free to write, I did not anticipate what a fruitful experience it would be to be in the community of other artists, not only writers, but visual artists, i.e. painters, printers, photographers, and also composers. Almost every evening, after dinner, fellows would organize a reading or two, someone would present his or her music, a visual artist would give a presentation, or occasionally, several artists would host an open studio night. At both residencies, I made great friends, not only in fellow writers, and those friendships have enriched my life ever since. Two or more weeks at the same place really afford you the time to make friends, and to connect with people with similar interests and sensitivities.

In my opinion, the community aspect is the real benefit of a residency. You can arrange for uninterrupted writing time in other ways (rent a hotel room with room service, for instance, or hide in a remote cabin somewhere), but you can hardly arrange to bond with other writers and artists.

A Serendipitous Concert

Sometimes life hands you bliss on a silver platter – but how to capture that joy? I will give it a try here by sharing a recent experience, and you, dear reader, will hopefully let me know if I succeeded.

Last Wednesday I was touring downtown Chicago with my aunt and uncle, who were visiting from Michigan. We explored Millennium Park, and marveled at our reflections in the “Bean.” I pointed out the many changes in the skyline of the last decade, and we reminisced about touring Paris together many years ago. Then an already blustery day turned into a rainy day, and the temperature started dropping, so we turned in for an early lunch at the Corner Bakery. After that we braved the cold again, wandering north on Michigan Ave. I kept pulling my hood over my head, and the wind kept whipping it off. By the time we reached the Chicago Cultural Center, the idea of warming up in a building seemed awfully attractive, so I said: “Let’s step in there; I’ll show you the Tiffany Dome.”

When I asked the guy at the information desk whether we could go up to see the Tiffany Dome, he said: “You sure can, in fact, they are setting up the piano there now. There’s a concert beginning in a few minutes, and it’s free.” I was intrigued. My aunt and uncle love music.

I looked at them, their hands still deep in their coat pockets, and asked: “Shall we do that?”

“Sure.”

So we climbed the staircase with all the mosaics on its walls, made of small shards of colored glass in between cream-colored tiles. Walking up you already know you’ve reached an oasis. Upstairs an usher greeted us, gesticulating for us to hurry: “There are seats on the sides, seats on the sides.” Over loud speakers, an announcer was already reviewing the résumé of the musicians.

I glimpsed the sea green dome shimmering above the heads of the people seated in the middle of the Preston Bradley Hall that, just like the staircase, featured cream-colored walls, set with tiny mosaics. Indeed there were empty seats in the side wing of the hall, not under the dome but close enough to marvel at it, and not too far from where a grand piano was set up on a podium.

Once I settled into a seat, the program on my lap, I was mainly awestruck by the jewel box I found myself in, and the good fortune that such places exist, right here in the city. Outside people were rushing about on their lunch hour, nipped at by the wind, and I was cozy inside, where it wasn’t only warm but where the walls sparkled and the largest art glass dome made by Tiffany rose above. And then the musicians appeared. The program announced Blagoj Lamnjov, Clarinet, and Kuang-Hao Huang, Piano, but it wasn’t until the undulating sound of the clarinet rippled through the hall that the true serendipity of this moment hit me: The clarinet is my sister’s instrument.

I leaned over to my uncle and whispered: “My sister would have loved this.” He nodded knowingly. She had visited with him and my aunt earlier this year, and, together with my mother, they had made music: My sister on the clarinet, my mother on the piano, my uncle and my mother singing. And now, on this lunch hour on a blustery cold November day in Chicago, under a Tiffany Dome from 1897 that by itself makes your heart soar, I was listening to the first selection of this Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert, André Messager’s Solo de Concurs for Clarinet and Piano (Listen!). The strings of family – what we do together, what we appreciate, and who we care about – were coming together, and I was floating in the bliss of having stepped into this moment.

I Want to Write My Story, But Is It Worthy?

I love it when students share their concerns with me, and ask questions that I am sure many writers ask themselves. Today I am sharing one such question (with my student's consent) because it is an important one for anyone who embarks on writing a personal story: 

Question: There are a lot of terrible things going on in the world and I feel selfish for writing about myself and my "problems." There are probably millions of people who would switch lives with me to get out of their war-torn countries and have a roof over their head. We are constantly beaten over the head with bad news, and it just seems like my story is just adding to the seemingly never ending bad news that comes out of life. Sure, what happened to me was a traumatic and life-changing experience, but I think some people would be willing switch places with me to alleviate their own suffering. Have you dealt with these issues while writing memoir? If so, how have you handled them?

Anne Frank in 1942

My Answer: I would say most writers, and indeed most writers of personal stories, be it memoir or personal essay, ask themselves these questions: Is my story worthy of being told?

In my opinion, everybody’s story is worthy of being told, and it is not only horror and trauma that are worthy of a story, but rather, it is much more important to tell a story of survival, like yours, and it is also important to tell stories of dealing with everyday life, as that’s what concerns most of us. We want to learn from memoir, want to gain insight, and we find the human connection in the universal experiences we share.

Stories of war are one thing, but many of us are fortunate not to have to live through something like that. Of course stories that give that historical record are hugely important, but stories of surviving and constructing a new life after a serious illness or injury are much more likely to happen to anyone in our society, and are therefore valuable.

A memoir does not have value just because it tells a terrible story; it has value because of what it meant to the narrator, and how the narrator overcame whatever difficulties were put in his path. A good story can be on a big topic, or it can be on a small topic; what matters is whether it has enough universality in it for the reader to make a connection, and to take something away from the reading experience.

Many memoirs are of course sensational, especially memoirs by politicians or celebrities, but in most of those cases, the point of the book is to set the record straight, or to tell their side of events that are probably already known to the reader. The interest here is the inside scoop, or “my part of the story,” rather than insight or “what I learned from this.”

With a literary memoir, the point is insight and meaning from whatever experience is being related, and hopefully the writer is able to offer those insights so that someone who might be going through a similar experience can learn something, or someone who will never go through it will get an idea of what it’s like.

Think of the most popular book about the Holocaust: The Diary of Anne Frank. Of course her fate was terrible, and yet that book is really quite ordinary, it shows that a 13-year-old girl is still concerned with boys and everyday issues, even if she’s in hiding from the Nazis. People can connect with that much more than any history book, because everybody was 13 years old at some point.

Writing Exercise: Color List - Brown

Another month has begun, so it's time for another color list. The color for November will be brown as it seems a month rich with so many earthly things.

For the uninitiated, the idea here is to come up with ways to evoke brown without mentioning the color itself because one of the challenges in writing effective descriptions is getting the color just right. Each month on this blog we work on one color, so far we’ve done orange, red, green, pink, blue, and yellow.

My own list for brown is rather long, so I thought it would be fun to first hand the baton over to you, my readers, to see what you can come up with. So I'll start with just a few words, and leave it to you to find nouns and adjectives that bring brown to mind. Here's my start:

amber
bark
chocolate
mocha

Reflections on a Writers’ Conference

On my fourth day back home from the writersandcritters conference in Sterling, VA, I am still exhausted. Writers conferences will do that to you, even a small and intimate one like this.

“You know it will take you days to recover from that,” my fourteen-year-old son said when I told him, somewhat proudly, that I’d been staying up until 2 or 3 in the morning, having the best conversations with my roommate, and still getting up at 8 to attend conference sessions. Of course having my teenage son act so fatherly made me smile but still I insisted, “It was worth it.” My roommate and I have, so far, only seen each other at these conferences, as she lives in Shanghai and I in Chicago, and while we keep in touch via email the rest of the time, sharing a cabin in Algonkian Park on the Potomac River during these conferences of our online writing group is an oasis of girlfriend time.

This captures what our conference looks and feels like: the intimate
cabin setting, everybody sitting around in a circle taking notes (I'm there
in fuchsia, with my back to the camera), a pumpkin flower
arrangement for beauty, and of course food (we are fortunate to have
an excellent cook who's also a Microsoft expert and spoils us with her nouveau
Southern cuisine that accommodates all our food preferences).

While I am lucky to have this special time with a roommate, the conference is still, first and foremost, a writers’ conference, a coming together of like minded souls, no matter how different we are in age, life experience, and writing interests. And therein lies the value: As a writer, attending a writers’ conference is always a good thing, because you will always learn something, and make some connection. Writing is a solitary pursuit, and yet, the paradox is that we need others to succeed, and a conference offers an opportunity to meet those others.

It might be daunting to walk into a room full of strangers (and it was on that very first conference when we all met in person for the first time!), but it’s worth it because you know you have something in common with all these people. Joyce Finn, who moderates writersandcritters and organizes these conferences (and is lovingly called Mother Hen by everyone), made a brilliant decision this time: While members have always given the bulk of the presentations, this year she somehow made sure that pretty much every one gave a session, and so we were all in it together. Everyone had a period of nervousness about speaking in front of the group, and yet this being in it together created a special sense of community.

A conference is basically non-stop input, and that’s where some of the exhaustion comes from. Either I was listening to a presentation on branding for writers, or one on evoking a sense of place in your writing, or one on something completely new to me: why and how you might want to create a web series. Or I was talking to people, not only my roommate late a night, but reconnecting with old friends like Nancy, or finally meeting someone in person whom I had known online, or chatting with someone I had not met before, like Diana who did an inspiring presentation on writing book reviews (she writers for the Washington Independent Review of Books), and who’s writing a biography of Eliza Scidmore (b. 1856), an adventuress who brought the cherry blossoms to Washington, DC.

You come home with a notebook full of ideas, email addresses, websites to check out, book recommendations, and workshop notes, and your head keeps buzzing for days on afterward, while you have to come down from all the excitement of new discoveries and have to deal with everyday life again. So, while I am still exhausted, not only from the conference but also from having to immediately jump back into homework help, kid logistics, packing lunches, and of course, the job, I am also rejuvenated, and the conference was, to repeat myself, worth it. I will be sharing some of my insights from the conference once they have percolated in my brain. I’m already working on one: Brainstorming with the Tarot. Intriguing, right?