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Help Me, Ernest Hemingway! By Lesley Hershman
Over the past year, whenever daily intrusions interfered with my writing, I would console myself with "don't worry, you'll get it done when you're up north this summer."
Geographically, up north refers to the small northern Michigan town approximately 400 miles away from my home in suburban Chicago. It is where my mother owns the perfect setting to help anyone unleash a torrent of creativity. She has a small stone house on a big plot of land surrounded by peaceful woods and a view of Lake Michigan at the end of a quiet road. (And if even more inspiration is needed, channeling the nearby spirit of Ernest Hemingway should be pretty easy, since he spent his boyhood summers in a town fifteen miles further north.)
To add to the ideal situation for me, my kids would
be away at various summer pursuits and my husband was happy to stay home to feed
the cats. For months, I looked forward to my selfish ten days of writing, even
going so far as to stock up on socks and underwear before I left, so that I
wouldn't have to waste my time doing laundry during my personal writing retreat.
As more time passed at home in Chicago with less
writing being accomplished, "up north" began to mean much more than just a
physical location. It became a reassuring mantra when things started to go awry
in my manuscript. My plot unraveling? I wasn't too concerned. It would magically
come together when it basked in the fresh northern air. My characters
one-dimensional and unlikable? Once I got them up north, I was confident they'd
become fascinating and multi-faceted. So it was with a keen sense of anticipation in early July that I packed up the car with my laptop, unfinished manuscript, comfortable writing clothes, and our two dogs. To start the trip off right, I listened to a set of a cassette tapes while I drove, recorded at a long ago writing workshop. I nodded vigorously in agreement when the workshop leader discussed the importance of writing every day, of getting into a routine.
"Did you hear what he said, girls?" I said to the
dogs in the backseat. "That's what this trip is all about. And I'm going to
establish that routine first thing tomorrow morning."
About four o'clock the next afternoon, I finally got
out my laptop. I had meant to get an earlier start, but I had slept in after my
long drive and a late evening catching up with friends. Then the dogs were so
excited to be back up in Michigan that they needed an extra walk that morning to
calm down. I ended up walking them all the way to an outdoor diner, where the
owner was a fellow dog lover, so we compared canine notes and then it
seemed rude not to order lunch while I was there. Afterward, I came home the
long way through town, just to see if there were any changes since I'd been
there last. I wasn't back home for more than ten minutes when I heard my mother
calling:
"Do you want to come to the grocery store with me?"
"I can't, I'm writing!" I answered.
"Okay, but then don't complain about what food I have
in the house while you're here," she said. I put the computer down and followed her out to the car. My mother and I don't always see eye to eye about the right kinds of peanut butter and diet soft drinks and I reasoned that it was better to start off with the proper supplies so that once I was really got into my work, I wouldn't have to run out to the store again.
Once we got back from the store (and the gas station,
post office, and the antique store ten miles away where I debated for ten
minutes between two pairs of chicken shaped salt and pepper shakers before
buying neither) it was time to take the dogs out again. Then it was almost
dinnertime and before I knew it, that bracing northern air made it difficult to
keep my eyes open much past nine.
"At least I got a lot of stuff out of the way today,"
I consoled myself before I fell asleep. "It was stupid of me to think that I
would actually write on the first day."
The next morning I was ready to go. I plugged in the
laptop, but nothing happened.
"Must just be a low battery," I said, reaching into
the computer case for the power cord. It wasn't there, but I found it a minute
later in the corner of the room. One of the dogs had chewed it up. I was proud
of myself that my first thought wasn't to immediately run to Radio Shack to buy
another one. No, I would create just as Ernest Hemingway himself may have done
years before--- with a pad of paper and a pen, outside in the Michigan sunlight.
I headed purposefully outdoors, pleased to be working in such a pure and natural
environment.
Five minutes later I was back inside the house. The
bugs, heat, and lack of comfortable chair were more than I could bear. Also,
there had been a persistent rustling in the woods that I was afraid might be an
opossum. (I am terrified of opossums.) When my friend Liz pulled up the driveway
and asked if I wanted to go to the Target store 50 miles away, I hopped in the
car and had my seatbelt fastened before she finished speaking. I meant to buy a
new computer cord there, but I was too busy helping her choose a new comforter
and didn't remember I needed it until we were on our way home. The next three days went by quickly. One morning I was reading an article in the local paper about a woman who ran a local pie stand and suddenly I, too, had an overwhelming desire to bake a pie. After two trips to the grocery store for supplies and a trip to the fruit stand, I produced a total of three pies (actually closer to two and half, since part of one of the pies overflowed in the oven and on to the floor) over the next couple of days. Then it took me one whole afternoon to clean the blueberry stains off floor and also an inexplicable one near the ceiling.
"How's your writing going?" she asked, looking
doubtfully at the pie tins on the table.
"Did you see I made three pies?" I asked.
"Yes, but I thought you wanted to concentrate on your
manuscript while you were here," said my mother.
"Yep, three whole pies all by myself," I said
proudly. "That's quite an accomplishment."
The next day I was leafing through my manuscript when
my husband called.
"How's it going?" he asked.
"It's going," I said.
"So have you gotten a lot done?" he asked.
"Uh, I think my mom needs the phone," I told him.
"Can I call you back later?"
"No, don't bother. Just keep writing," he said. "I'll
see you pretty soon."
"Pretty soon?" I repeated. "Wow, you really are caught up in your work," he said. "Didn't you realize you're coming home the day after tomorrow?"
Two days later I packed the car back up with the
dogs, the dead computer, the unfinished manuscript, and the blueberry stained
writing clothes. I didn't listen to the writing cassettes on the way home.
A few days later my cousin called from Florida with a
lovely invitation to visit her for a few days in November. Of course I said yes right away. Palm trees, warm weather, and Ernest's spirit wafting over from his beloved Key West will definitely get me back on track. My new mantra is "Don't worry, it will all come together down south." And if Florida doesn't get me back on track, I've also got a cousin in North Carolina who might invite me for a visit too. Does anyone know if Ernest Hemingway's spirit might be lurking around the Raleigh-Durham area?
Lesley Hershman is a freelance writer in the Chicago area.
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