I live in a aspiring farmhouse on the north corner of my grandfather's farm. I say aspiring because it is a.more modern design, but I think of it as a country home. Grandpa passed away years ago, but my mother still lives in his and grandma's home just a short walk from here. I married a city guy, but he loves animals and nature so we get along fine.
This place is in Milan, IN, just and hour west of Cincinnati, OH. I am still trying to figure out what I want to do and how things should go. My best friend helps me realize there is no time to waste since we are both 54. But I still manage to waste some.
That's lovely country there, Cara--and so green. We have green here for two months (April-May), then everything turns to toast. I envy your all-summer green! My recommendation to someone just past 50: we may be living 100+-year lives, and we'll all need to adapt to huge changes, in our society, economy, climate. So we need to build in plenty of flexibility and be willing to learn, learn, learn. Good that you have a friend to share plans and planning!
Sandy, I am a watercolourist Sorry spelt that the "English way" but habits are hard to break. I understand completely how you feel. I paint and draw the wonders around me, and have a wonderful friend called Morgan Warren who is a profession artist and works and writes about the great earth and all it can offer. I belong to an environmental group here who look after our local river and the salmon that spawn in it. We do day camps for the children and go into the local schools to try and make a difference, but it is a slow process. Sadly the lure of having it all takes over when they get older, but out of the many who come through us there is one or two who take it all to heart and make an effort to change their thinking. So we never give up. We have won a couple of battles against developers and work together with our First Nation People.. As long as there are people like you, me and others who want a balanced world there is always hope.
Sep 1, 2023·edited Sep 2, 2023Liked by Susan Wittig Albert
Yesterday a startling question was posed to me. I was in the checkout line in our local grocery store, and the clerk was dragging my items across the beeping scanner when she turned to me and asked,
"Have you written a book?" I was stunned. I shop there several times a week and know Marilyn, but only as a friendly person that I consider my favorite checker, though I never told her that nor ever had a conversation with her about anything in particular. I replied that I have written several chapters and journal entries, but could never get a handle on a focus. She said that she began writing about her early life but couldn't even find what she wrote now. I had to ask why on earth she thought I was a writer, and she said, "You look like you are."
How about that. I can't stop thinking about this encounter and will talk again with her.
Nancy, thinking again last night about this, I remember a dream I had once: I woke up with the words "Be alert for messages from me" in my head. The messages came, I listened and acted on them, and it changed my life. Prompts come to us from all directions. Maybe this is yours?
I know. I have been thinking about the novel I began about a decade ago but never fully developed, as well as the small chapters about those who impacted my life, especially as a child, and my journaling today. What is so strange is that I have been working on these writings and reorganizing them for the past month. So, Marilyn's question and follow-up explanation that I "looked like" a writer were so timely. A prompt, perhaps.
Maybe so, Diane. I have been pondering that short discussion since it happened. It almost didn't seem real as it was so unanticipated. I will be in the store again in a day or so and hope to follow-up with Marilyn. I'm glad you, too, found the encounter one to remember.
I came to it late, but I am now an urbanist and teach a class in urban studies, so I think a lot about my place. I used to live in Tempe, Arizona. It is not a very sustainable place. There, it is over 90 every day from mid-May to mid-October, and often well over 100 and even over 110. Not only that, but its form of urbanization has led to an urban heat island effect (where the hardscape collects heat all day and emits it all night) and so now there is at least one month every summer where the heat never goes below 80 (not true in the nearby desert). AC is pretty much a must. Also, in the part of town where I lived, all the houses basically looked the same, post-war tract housing made of slump block; my daughter's best friend lived 2 miles away across a major intersection, and their houses were identical mirror images of each other. Water is a constant issue, and a xeriscaping push unfortunately led many people simply to kill off anything green and cover their yards with crushed rock--which does not help the urban heat island situation, nor the city's aesthetics.
But now I live in Claremont, California. I fell in love with it on a brief visit. Claremont has about 33,000 people and 9 colleges and universities. It is often called "the City of Trees and PhDs." Here the houses are very different from each other, including different sizes (implying different income levels and family types), and, as you might guess, there are a lot of trees. Claremont is in LA County and part of the LA megapolitan, but if you were magically wafted here you wouldn't guess. It's very walkable. We have our own small downtown, which we call "the Village." There is a corner here that has the post office, with MacIntosh-type tiles and romantic Southwestern WPA murals inside; right across from the library (brutalist); right across from the Spanish-Revival City Hall; and right across from an independently owned toy store called Boon Companion. We abut the San Gabriel Mountains, and you see them almost everywhere in town, and there are protected lands and lots of trails. Route 66 runs E-W through the town, so we are linked practically and historically with the other foothill cities. Though the LA area has notoriously bad air, Claremont's air is always better. I've been living here 13 years, and I still love Claremont!
I'm having trouble describing how your words made me feel. As you know, we're moving from our Texas home to the Pacific Northwest to the land that calls me on Whidbey Island. While Zoom and FaceTime have helped our sense of the "new" (built in 1978) house we will call home, we've not set foot in it or on the grounds. I've been happy about this long-awaited move to a part of the country we've visited almost annually for 15 years, but you made me "feel" the landscape that has invited me to make it my own. The excitement became palpable when I read your piece and listened to your video about Meadow Knoll. I can now picture myself actually living on Whidbey, soaking up the greenery and beauty of the new surroundings. I'm so grateful to you, Susan, for so many things, and now for the gift of understanding place. Thanks from the bottom of my tingling heart.
Re-placing ourselves takes courage, doesn't it, Jeanne? As much courage as re-storying ourselves. Because place is story and (while we don't always realize it), our stories are wrapped in place. I've been to Whidbey and loved it. I can see why it calls you. We'll miss you here, but I know you'll be happy there. Send photos. Write us into your new life there!
I have just finished "What comes next and how to like it" by Abigail Thomas, An interesting writing style, almost as if she is talking to herself - out loud
Hi, Susan. I so appreciate your writing, and have enjoyed most of your books as well as those by you and Bill as Robin Page. Just a note: We have a large spider who lives on the space between the rail of our deck and the house, and I have named him (her?) Gerald, though he hasn't yet come when I have called to him. Our wildlife is lovely and makes me grateful for everyday. We moved here to the Ouachita Mountains in Arkansas because the heat and drought in our native Texas was too much for us. Although we miss terribly our family and life-long friends still in Texas, our home is lovely.
I look forward to your continued writings, and thank you. I have written a bit, but haven't yet been able to grab onto it, to tie it up somehow. I'll try your suggestions.
I’m enjoying your newsletters as they arrive in my email inbox, as I have for years now, almost as much as I have enjoyed your novels.
I’m still not quite sure what I think about Substack, but they’ve been around long enough that I suppose I can just trust your decision to ally with that host, and it’s not important how much I access their other content.
I am increasingly aware of the prompts in each emailed newsletter that offer the option to become a paid subscriber, to possibly get more access to more content, and it leaves me wondering.
I can appreciate that you have been looking for ways to improve the financial aspect of your sustainability, and that your time in producing your newsletter could be more profitable for you.
And further, that anyone’s time and effort to create content, art, or anything else that is worthwhile should be validated and compensated accordingly.
Hence it makes sense to me that you are seeking more ways to be compensated for your ongoing efforts - to broaden your monetization, whether or not all of your fans can continue to participate in that compensatory cycle.
I thought I’d reach I out to acknowledge the changes you have been making, to appreciate this in writing and to thank you and let you know that your work is still admired, that your words are still being read by your fans.
It has been rewarding to read your books over the years, and more recently to read your newsletters, to learn more about your life and your broader interests in the world. It’s also deeply meaningful to me that you have been directly reflecting on your life as a senior woman in America, and that much of your experience reflects some of my own.
As a woman approaching my mid-sixties, married and “living in place” as you call it, I am noticing the many parallels between your descriptions of your life and my own lived experience.
Just as I have observed my mother’s life in recent decades and considered how my own life echoes much of her reality, I have occasionally been able to gain some insights into the meaning of my life, through observing and considering your reflections upon yours.
I just wanted you to know that when you write about your experiences at this stage of your life, your reflections on your career and on what it’s like to live where you do and how you carry out that living, your words and the meanings of your words are being read and appreciated.
Here in Northern California, enduring yet another relentless series of heatwaves that compose our summers here, I note the ongoing effects of climate change and the many other changes in our world.
I see the many changes around me - environmental, political, technological, scientific, media, and more - and I am made aware through your newsletters that others like myself are likewise experiencing during these challenging times.
I know that these experiences and observations and ruminations of mine on life in this world at this time are not mine alone, that there are others like you who not only exist during this time, but who also contemplate it and share their thoughts on their lives.
Thank you for your ongoing work and your willingness to share these deeper reflections and insights about a lived reality that in some ways is like my own; it is valuable to me and also very validating to read about how your daily life has been a series of cycles and changes, much like my own.
It is comforting to read about how you are engaging with your world as it continues to evolve, how your garden has radically shifted due to both climate change and your own ability to physically cope with its increasing demands, and how your perception of what is possible for you in practical terms as you grow older.
Most of the women I know strive to reject notions of their own aging, they try to deny that it is happening, and insist on asserting their continuing ability to live their lives as they always have - somehow magically unaffected by the passage of time and their own inevitable aging
I see the trends in women’s appearance, their increasing resistance to the social pressures to maintain a particular haircolor by dying it to hide grey hair, and other trends that indicate that the impacts of our experiences as women in this phase of life at this point in history continue to be important.
I’m struck by the very tenuousness of our lives, of our experiences, and by how much we are affected by our aging, and how aging is viewed and responded to within our society.
As a retired woman now living in poverty, helping my widowed mother as she grows older in a retirement community nearby, it seems strange at times how much I’m able to relate to the life reflections of a woman of similar age who is also a published and relatively famous author, who lives hundreds of miles from here in the rural hill country of Texas.
While I have in the past found it pleasant and diverting to read your novels, and while I was at points able to relate to the main character as a woman in midlife with many similarities in worldview to my own, I’ve been far more able to relate to your real life experiences and observations.
I don’t know much about life as a professional author or about what it’s like to have lived the kind of life you have led, but I still find aspects of your regular commentary about your life both interesting and comforting to me on a personal level.
I may never be in a financial position to become a paid subscriber to your ongoing writings, but I will never stop appreciating and admiring your work that I can access.
I’ve been reading your novels via our library, downloading the books and reading them on my mobile devices, and in this way I’ve been able to afford reading your work and also modify the size and visibility of the text for my aging eyesight.
Your work is still amazing, still viable and valid for other women in this world, and still appreciated- even by those who cannot afford to participate in any type of paid aspects of your work.
Thank you for the contribution you have made, that you continue to make, to readers in general and to me in particular. Your words and thoughtful observations have helped to make my life be more one that I reflect deeply upon, rather than merely an existence.
Debra, thank you for thinking through this transactional writing model that Substack offers. It's different, new, and I've been interested in readers' reactions. For some, the idea of paying writers directly is a change and maybe a challenge--especially library readers who are accustomed to borrowing the books they read. Or readers who pick up used books at garage sales and flea markets. And even readers who buy new books in bookstores, a very arms-length transaction with no contact between writer/reader.
So to some, this feels . . . weird. Someone told me she thought it reduced the value of a piece of writing to the level of a dozen eggs. Another said it cost too much. Another wanted PayPal, not Stripe. Another wondered if the price could be dropped to $5 a month. Another--but you get the idea.
I sold my first piece of writing when I was 19 (a penny a word) and I've made a living as a freelance writer since 1985. So writing for money isn't a new thing for me. But I first worked for hire, then worked for many years for a major publishing house, then with my own imprint, and always through the traditional vendor distribution system. This direct, clearly transactional writer-to-reader model is as new to me as a writer as it is to you as a reader. I'm still getting used to it.
Much to think about here. I'm sure that we'll talk more about it, especially when I start putting some posts behind paywalls. Thanks for bringing it up!
So much to respond to! I am loving this new format. Even though I have followed you for years, I am learning so much more being here, so thank you! I love your spider's name. Why was Nathaniel Hawthorne annoyed by Louisa May Alcott? I think you already know I live in upstate New York State (you have to say upstate and State otherwise people think I'm living in New York City). More specifically, in my parents' stick Victorian home which my brother and I inherited. I live in the country, but I have a highway that was built near me. But now that I've been here a couple of years, I'd rather have the highway noise than nosey neighbors. I grew up in the country, so I'm used to not being watched when I'm working outside, and I much prefer it that way. I love your Meadow Knoll and that you love your place. I don't keep a journal, but I should. I could refer back to things if I had been journaling for all of these years, but I rely on my memory.
It's wonderful to hear from so many people I know from SM! You're right--it's a good format for us. Re Hawthorne, this is what he wrote to his publisher in 1855:
America is now wholly given over to a damned mob of scribbling women, and I should have no chance of success while the public taste is occupied with their trash–and should be ashamed of myself if I did succeed. What is the mystery of these innumerable editions of the ‘Lamplighter,’ and other books neither better nor worse?–worse they could not be, and better they need not be, when they sell by the 100,000.—
He was PO'd that "sentimental novels" (a wildly popular genre of that day) were outselling his more consciously "literary" work. He was annoyed at the competition from female authors.
I understand about the tradeoff with the highway. Here, I love our isolation. But it has a downside: no neighbors means nobody handy in case of emergency, and anything more interesting than Tex-Mex is an hour-plus in heavy traffic. Tradeoffs.
I'm writing from western Pennsylvania where - surprisingly - I found I had ancestors buried nearby. I moved to Western PA when I retired from California. Couldn't afford to live in California on my small pension so moved to be nearer to my middle daughter. I was soon called out of retirement - (I'm a retired pastor) - and found myself serving churches again instead of finding the acreage I wanted so I could have a garden and a few chickens. I was reappointed to this small "village" - they call it a borough because it once was, and after serving churches here I have retired again. I eventually found a house to rent - they are very scarce here - and enjoy my house and large back yard. Fortunately my landlord mows it! And there's plenty of wild life - from feral cats to bears, and I try to keep busy and useful. I'm still mobile and my health issues are being cared for so I enjoy my days. Long ago I started doing "morning pages" as Julia Cameron suggested in her book The Artist's Way, but I don't keep them. Well, I sort of keep them, but only for a year. I also keep a daily "log book," I guess you'd call it, because if I don't write things down I'll forget them. Those I do keep. Life is good, and I can make a home wherever I am and wherever I can find friends. Thank you for sharing your life with us.
Sounds as if retirement isn't for you, Carole: y ou've been open to new callings. It's a gift to be able to name your place a home, wherever you are. And your daily log (I have one, too) keeps us in touch with time passing, events. Thanks for adding to the conversation.
I write from the other side of the meridian- India. I live very close to the millennium IT hub of this country , the bustling city of Aircrafts that take off on runways built over busy subways, of Michelin star restaurants and close to the seat of the power of the country. But is this my place ? In some ways, my apartment is in a quiet corner of the city, which developers forgot ( until recently ....sigh!) Tucked away in a valley, it overlooks acres and acres of green. Inside the house that I share with my sister, the space is filled with books , music and food. But "modern" lifestyle is catching up and my lovely green valley maybe a memory after a few years. And seeing this fugure, I am trying to find a new place , that will not be overrun by the constant need to be stylish or modern.
Jayanati, so good to hear from the other side of the globe! Thank you for joining the conversation. You're witness to huge changes perhaps even more than we are here, because of the population pressure. Wishing you success in finding what you're looking for!
Today at work/school we are asked to do an “I am poster” I am a wife to…, mother to, gardener, reader, writer….. and so on. It’s an interesting exercise showing the inter connectedness of aspects we don’t always share across the different places we exist …… I enjoyed your blog today………. And have many times for many years.
I live in a aspiring farmhouse on the north corner of my grandfather's farm. I say aspiring because it is a.more modern design, but I think of it as a country home. Grandpa passed away years ago, but my mother still lives in his and grandma's home just a short walk from here. I married a city guy, but he loves animals and nature so we get along fine.
This place is in Milan, IN, just and hour west of Cincinnati, OH. I am still trying to figure out what I want to do and how things should go. My best friend helps me realize there is no time to waste since we are both 54. But I still manage to waste some.
That's lovely country there, Cara--and so green. We have green here for two months (April-May), then everything turns to toast. I envy your all-summer green! My recommendation to someone just past 50: we may be living 100+-year lives, and we'll all need to adapt to huge changes, in our society, economy, climate. So we need to build in plenty of flexibility and be willing to learn, learn, learn. Good that you have a friend to share plans and planning!
Sandy, I am a watercolourist Sorry spelt that the "English way" but habits are hard to break. I understand completely how you feel. I paint and draw the wonders around me, and have a wonderful friend called Morgan Warren who is a profession artist and works and writes about the great earth and all it can offer. I belong to an environmental group here who look after our local river and the salmon that spawn in it. We do day camps for the children and go into the local schools to try and make a difference, but it is a slow process. Sadly the lure of having it all takes over when they get older, but out of the many who come through us there is one or two who take it all to heart and make an effort to change their thinking. So we never give up. We have won a couple of battles against developers and work together with our First Nation People.. As long as there are people like you, me and others who want a balanced world there is always hope.
This is lovely, a poem, a praise of your place and a statement of gratitude for discovering your relationship with it.
Yesterday a startling question was posed to me. I was in the checkout line in our local grocery store, and the clerk was dragging my items across the beeping scanner when she turned to me and asked,
"Have you written a book?" I was stunned. I shop there several times a week and know Marilyn, but only as a friendly person that I consider my favorite checker, though I never told her that nor ever had a conversation with her about anything in particular. I replied that I have written several chapters and journal entries, but could never get a handle on a focus. She said that she began writing about her early life but couldn't even find what she wrote now. I had to ask why on earth she thought I was a writer, and she said, "You look like you are."
How about that. I can't stop thinking about this encounter and will talk again with her.
Nancy, thinking again last night about this, I remember a dream I had once: I woke up with the words "Be alert for messages from me" in my head. The messages came, I listened and acted on them, and it changed my life. Prompts come to us from all directions. Maybe this is yours?
I know. I have been thinking about the novel I began about a decade ago but never fully developed, as well as the small chapters about those who impacted my life, especially as a child, and my journaling today. What is so strange is that I have been working on these writings and reorganizing them for the past month. So, Marilyn's question and follow-up explanation that I "looked like" a writer were so timely. A prompt, perhaps.
What a wonderful encounter. I think your checker delivered a message to you from the universe.
Maybe so, Diane. I have been pondering that short discussion since it happened. It almost didn't seem real as it was so unanticipated. I will be in the store again in a day or so and hope to follow-up with Marilyn. I'm glad you, too, found the encounter one to remember.
Strange, Nancy. I can see why this gives you something to think about. Maybe do some journaling?
I came to it late, but I am now an urbanist and teach a class in urban studies, so I think a lot about my place. I used to live in Tempe, Arizona. It is not a very sustainable place. There, it is over 90 every day from mid-May to mid-October, and often well over 100 and even over 110. Not only that, but its form of urbanization has led to an urban heat island effect (where the hardscape collects heat all day and emits it all night) and so now there is at least one month every summer where the heat never goes below 80 (not true in the nearby desert). AC is pretty much a must. Also, in the part of town where I lived, all the houses basically looked the same, post-war tract housing made of slump block; my daughter's best friend lived 2 miles away across a major intersection, and their houses were identical mirror images of each other. Water is a constant issue, and a xeriscaping push unfortunately led many people simply to kill off anything green and cover their yards with crushed rock--which does not help the urban heat island situation, nor the city's aesthetics.
But now I live in Claremont, California. I fell in love with it on a brief visit. Claremont has about 33,000 people and 9 colleges and universities. It is often called "the City of Trees and PhDs." Here the houses are very different from each other, including different sizes (implying different income levels and family types), and, as you might guess, there are a lot of trees. Claremont is in LA County and part of the LA megapolitan, but if you were magically wafted here you wouldn't guess. It's very walkable. We have our own small downtown, which we call "the Village." There is a corner here that has the post office, with MacIntosh-type tiles and romantic Southwestern WPA murals inside; right across from the library (brutalist); right across from the Spanish-Revival City Hall; and right across from an independently owned toy store called Boon Companion. We abut the San Gabriel Mountains, and you see them almost everywhere in town, and there are protected lands and lots of trails. Route 66 runs E-W through the town, so we are linked practically and historically with the other foothill cities. Though the LA area has notoriously bad air, Claremont's air is always better. I've been living here 13 years, and I still love Claremont!
I'm having trouble describing how your words made me feel. As you know, we're moving from our Texas home to the Pacific Northwest to the land that calls me on Whidbey Island. While Zoom and FaceTime have helped our sense of the "new" (built in 1978) house we will call home, we've not set foot in it or on the grounds. I've been happy about this long-awaited move to a part of the country we've visited almost annually for 15 years, but you made me "feel" the landscape that has invited me to make it my own. The excitement became palpable when I read your piece and listened to your video about Meadow Knoll. I can now picture myself actually living on Whidbey, soaking up the greenery and beauty of the new surroundings. I'm so grateful to you, Susan, for so many things, and now for the gift of understanding place. Thanks from the bottom of my tingling heart.
Re-placing ourselves takes courage, doesn't it, Jeanne? As much courage as re-storying ourselves. Because place is story and (while we don't always realize it), our stories are wrapped in place. I've been to Whidbey and loved it. I can see why it calls you. We'll miss you here, but I know you'll be happy there. Send photos. Write us into your new life there!
Cannot imagine my new life there without remaining connected to you and my SCN sisters.
I have just finished "What comes next and how to like it" by Abigail Thomas, An interesting writing style, almost as if she is talking to herself - out loud
Thanks Susan,
Yes it is a lovely place to live, if we can keep the developers at bay!
It really is luxurious here, and so peaceful.
Hi, Susan. I so appreciate your writing, and have enjoyed most of your books as well as those by you and Bill as Robin Page. Just a note: We have a large spider who lives on the space between the rail of our deck and the house, and I have named him (her?) Gerald, though he hasn't yet come when I have called to him. Our wildlife is lovely and makes me grateful for everyday. We moved here to the Ouachita Mountains in Arkansas because the heat and drought in our native Texas was too much for us. Although we miss terribly our family and life-long friends still in Texas, our home is lovely.
I look forward to your continued writings, and thank you. I have written a bit, but haven't yet been able to grab onto it, to tie it up somehow. I'll try your suggestions.
Louisa sends spidery greetings to Gerald. :) I've driven through the Ouachitas--lovely region!
I’m enjoying your newsletters as they arrive in my email inbox, as I have for years now, almost as much as I have enjoyed your novels.
I’m still not quite sure what I think about Substack, but they’ve been around long enough that I suppose I can just trust your decision to ally with that host, and it’s not important how much I access their other content.
I am increasingly aware of the prompts in each emailed newsletter that offer the option to become a paid subscriber, to possibly get more access to more content, and it leaves me wondering.
I can appreciate that you have been looking for ways to improve the financial aspect of your sustainability, and that your time in producing your newsletter could be more profitable for you.
And further, that anyone’s time and effort to create content, art, or anything else that is worthwhile should be validated and compensated accordingly.
Hence it makes sense to me that you are seeking more ways to be compensated for your ongoing efforts - to broaden your monetization, whether or not all of your fans can continue to participate in that compensatory cycle.
I thought I’d reach I out to acknowledge the changes you have been making, to appreciate this in writing and to thank you and let you know that your work is still admired, that your words are still being read by your fans.
It has been rewarding to read your books over the years, and more recently to read your newsletters, to learn more about your life and your broader interests in the world. It’s also deeply meaningful to me that you have been directly reflecting on your life as a senior woman in America, and that much of your experience reflects some of my own.
As a woman approaching my mid-sixties, married and “living in place” as you call it, I am noticing the many parallels between your descriptions of your life and my own lived experience.
Just as I have observed my mother’s life in recent decades and considered how my own life echoes much of her reality, I have occasionally been able to gain some insights into the meaning of my life, through observing and considering your reflections upon yours.
I just wanted you to know that when you write about your experiences at this stage of your life, your reflections on your career and on what it’s like to live where you do and how you carry out that living, your words and the meanings of your words are being read and appreciated.
Here in Northern California, enduring yet another relentless series of heatwaves that compose our summers here, I note the ongoing effects of climate change and the many other changes in our world.
I see the many changes around me - environmental, political, technological, scientific, media, and more - and I am made aware through your newsletters that others like myself are likewise experiencing during these challenging times.
I know that these experiences and observations and ruminations of mine on life in this world at this time are not mine alone, that there are others like you who not only exist during this time, but who also contemplate it and share their thoughts on their lives.
Thank you for your ongoing work and your willingness to share these deeper reflections and insights about a lived reality that in some ways is like my own; it is valuable to me and also very validating to read about how your daily life has been a series of cycles and changes, much like my own.
It is comforting to read about how you are engaging with your world as it continues to evolve, how your garden has radically shifted due to both climate change and your own ability to physically cope with its increasing demands, and how your perception of what is possible for you in practical terms as you grow older.
Most of the women I know strive to reject notions of their own aging, they try to deny that it is happening, and insist on asserting their continuing ability to live their lives as they always have - somehow magically unaffected by the passage of time and their own inevitable aging
I see the trends in women’s appearance, their increasing resistance to the social pressures to maintain a particular haircolor by dying it to hide grey hair, and other trends that indicate that the impacts of our experiences as women in this phase of life at this point in history continue to be important.
I’m struck by the very tenuousness of our lives, of our experiences, and by how much we are affected by our aging, and how aging is viewed and responded to within our society.
As a retired woman now living in poverty, helping my widowed mother as she grows older in a retirement community nearby, it seems strange at times how much I’m able to relate to the life reflections of a woman of similar age who is also a published and relatively famous author, who lives hundreds of miles from here in the rural hill country of Texas.
While I have in the past found it pleasant and diverting to read your novels, and while I was at points able to relate to the main character as a woman in midlife with many similarities in worldview to my own, I’ve been far more able to relate to your real life experiences and observations.
I don’t know much about life as a professional author or about what it’s like to have lived the kind of life you have led, but I still find aspects of your regular commentary about your life both interesting and comforting to me on a personal level.
I may never be in a financial position to become a paid subscriber to your ongoing writings, but I will never stop appreciating and admiring your work that I can access.
I’ve been reading your novels via our library, downloading the books and reading them on my mobile devices, and in this way I’ve been able to afford reading your work and also modify the size and visibility of the text for my aging eyesight.
Your work is still amazing, still viable and valid for other women in this world, and still appreciated- even by those who cannot afford to participate in any type of paid aspects of your work.
Thank you for the contribution you have made, that you continue to make, to readers in general and to me in particular. Your words and thoughtful observations have helped to make my life be more one that I reflect deeply upon, rather than merely an existence.
Peace to you and yours,
Deborah Michel
Sacramento, CA
Debra, thank you for thinking through this transactional writing model that Substack offers. It's different, new, and I've been interested in readers' reactions. For some, the idea of paying writers directly is a change and maybe a challenge--especially library readers who are accustomed to borrowing the books they read. Or readers who pick up used books at garage sales and flea markets. And even readers who buy new books in bookstores, a very arms-length transaction with no contact between writer/reader.
So to some, this feels . . . weird. Someone told me she thought it reduced the value of a piece of writing to the level of a dozen eggs. Another said it cost too much. Another wanted PayPal, not Stripe. Another wondered if the price could be dropped to $5 a month. Another--but you get the idea.
I sold my first piece of writing when I was 19 (a penny a word) and I've made a living as a freelance writer since 1985. So writing for money isn't a new thing for me. But I first worked for hire, then worked for many years for a major publishing house, then with my own imprint, and always through the traditional vendor distribution system. This direct, clearly transactional writer-to-reader model is as new to me as a writer as it is to you as a reader. I'm still getting used to it.
Much to think about here. I'm sure that we'll talk more about it, especially when I start putting some posts behind paywalls. Thanks for bringing it up!
So much to respond to! I am loving this new format. Even though I have followed you for years, I am learning so much more being here, so thank you! I love your spider's name. Why was Nathaniel Hawthorne annoyed by Louisa May Alcott? I think you already know I live in upstate New York State (you have to say upstate and State otherwise people think I'm living in New York City). More specifically, in my parents' stick Victorian home which my brother and I inherited. I live in the country, but I have a highway that was built near me. But now that I've been here a couple of years, I'd rather have the highway noise than nosey neighbors. I grew up in the country, so I'm used to not being watched when I'm working outside, and I much prefer it that way. I love your Meadow Knoll and that you love your place. I don't keep a journal, but I should. I could refer back to things if I had been journaling for all of these years, but I rely on my memory.
It's wonderful to hear from so many people I know from SM! You're right--it's a good format for us. Re Hawthorne, this is what he wrote to his publisher in 1855:
America is now wholly given over to a damned mob of scribbling women, and I should have no chance of success while the public taste is occupied with their trash–and should be ashamed of myself if I did succeed. What is the mystery of these innumerable editions of the ‘Lamplighter,’ and other books neither better nor worse?–worse they could not be, and better they need not be, when they sell by the 100,000.—
He was PO'd that "sentimental novels" (a wildly popular genre of that day) were outselling his more consciously "literary" work. He was annoyed at the competition from female authors.
I understand about the tradeoff with the highway. Here, I love our isolation. But it has a downside: no neighbors means nobody handy in case of emergency, and anything more interesting than Tex-Mex is an hour-plus in heavy traffic. Tradeoffs.
Ah, very interesting about Hawthorne. Thank you for sharing his feelings. I never knew this.
So true regarding neighbors in case of emergency. Now I see why you make many of your own meals, which always look and sound very good.
I'm writing from western Pennsylvania where - surprisingly - I found I had ancestors buried nearby. I moved to Western PA when I retired from California. Couldn't afford to live in California on my small pension so moved to be nearer to my middle daughter. I was soon called out of retirement - (I'm a retired pastor) - and found myself serving churches again instead of finding the acreage I wanted so I could have a garden and a few chickens. I was reappointed to this small "village" - they call it a borough because it once was, and after serving churches here I have retired again. I eventually found a house to rent - they are very scarce here - and enjoy my house and large back yard. Fortunately my landlord mows it! And there's plenty of wild life - from feral cats to bears, and I try to keep busy and useful. I'm still mobile and my health issues are being cared for so I enjoy my days. Long ago I started doing "morning pages" as Julia Cameron suggested in her book The Artist's Way, but I don't keep them. Well, I sort of keep them, but only for a year. I also keep a daily "log book," I guess you'd call it, because if I don't write things down I'll forget them. Those I do keep. Life is good, and I can make a home wherever I am and wherever I can find friends. Thank you for sharing your life with us.
Sounds as if retirement isn't for you, Carole: y ou've been open to new callings. It's a gift to be able to name your place a home, wherever you are. And your daily log (I have one, too) keeps us in touch with time passing, events. Thanks for adding to the conversation.
I’m writing from my house in the country near Loda, IL, about an hour from where you grew up! SandyU
I write from the other side of the meridian- India. I live very close to the millennium IT hub of this country , the bustling city of Aircrafts that take off on runways built over busy subways, of Michelin star restaurants and close to the seat of the power of the country. But is this my place ? In some ways, my apartment is in a quiet corner of the city, which developers forgot ( until recently ....sigh!) Tucked away in a valley, it overlooks acres and acres of green. Inside the house that I share with my sister, the space is filled with books , music and food. But "modern" lifestyle is catching up and my lovely green valley maybe a memory after a few years. And seeing this fugure, I am trying to find a new place , that will not be overrun by the constant need to be stylish or modern.
Jayanati, so good to hear from the other side of the globe! Thank you for joining the conversation. You're witness to huge changes perhaps even more than we are here, because of the population pressure. Wishing you success in finding what you're looking for!
Today at work/school we are asked to do an “I am poster” I am a wife to…, mother to, gardener, reader, writer….. and so on. It’s an interesting exercise showing the inter connectedness of aspects we don’t always share across the different places we exist …… I enjoyed your blog today………. And have many times for many years.
Indeed! Our identities ("I am") are so often related to place. Thanks, Pat.