Dear Oaklie

 

I wish the presidential campaign were over; the suspense is terrible. What if the wrong candidate is elected? Will we undergo a massive upheaval?

        But I trust the strength of our democratic institutions. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, the Constitutional Convention, the Constitution. The Bill of Rights. The traditions we’ve honored for two centuries. How can these just crumble? How could the whims of one man bring our nation crashing to the ground?

        Oh, how I wish it would rain. Just saw the saddest-looking oakleaf hydrangea. It was in my neighbor’s yard. The big, decorative leaves; they’ve hardly had a chance to change color. Now they’re folded and drooping. I enjoy October’s clear blue sky. I enjoy temperatures in the 70s. They make me doff my sweater. What is that Mother Goose rhyme about the sun beating down on a man walking down the road? Makes him remove one layer of clothing after another.

        I wish I were writing a novel. I’d write about a woman who loses her memory and sets out find it. It distresses her. Each day she remembers less and less. I’d give her a hydrangea name, Oaklie.

        One day – this happens while Oaklie is walking in her neighborhood – one by one her memories change color and tumble from the trees. That magnificently full maple tree in Smithtons’ yard, its color a deep dark red? It startles her, though it does the same thing every year. She asks the maple, Are you a particular kind of tree?

Magic

 

It started yesterday, the experiment, with a review by Michael Dirda, of The Brothers Grimm: A Biography, by Ann Schmiesing. Dirda’s title was: “Once upon a time, there were two brothers.” I went to the fairy tales by Jacob and Wihelm Grimm, who lived in the late 18^th and first half of the 19^th centuries. The first tale begins, “In old times when wishing still helped one, there lived a king whose daughters were all beautiful.”

Wishing?  

At bedtime, reading Isaac Asimov’s Casebook of the Black Widowers, I detected a pattern. Six men gather monthly for a banquet. They consider Henry, the waiter who attends them, a member of their group. Each month the six launch into a passionate discussion on a particular topic. It raises a problem. At the end each time, Henry modestly provides a solution. The first six are sketchily described. I can’t picture them. But Henry’s quiet and sure demeanor rings true.

Asimov’s story entitled “Middle Name” reminded me of “Rumpelstiltskin,” where again everything turns on the recognition of someone’s name. But then the author of a Time magazine article on romance novels said, “For the spell to work, you need the reader’s total trust.”

The spell?

I thought about the Brothers Grimm, for whom magic was a factor. I thought about the Asimov stories, where pattern is a factor. And about Henry, who consistently performs the magic of resolution. What is it about story? What magic occurs when Author takes up his or her pen?

Is it a story?

 

This is an experiment. Can I write 335 words a day, six days a week, for 25 weeks? 150 days of writing would yield an ideal 50,250 words.  

    Can I also manage a blog? I’d post 250 words a day, three times a week. Each post would polish a 335-word segment.

            I didn’t know if I would have a theme. Then one presented itself, in an op-ed column in The Washington Post. Megan McCardle discusses aging presidents and the issue of cognitive capacity. She goes on to ask whether a constitutional amendment could set an upper age limit for holders of the office. She suggests seventy-two.

            Her suggestion solves a problem for me, perhaps more than one. First, as a writer, what shall I write about? Second, I enjoy time-limited projects. Third, I am 85 years old and am experiencing cognitive issues, mainly concerning memory. I could lengthen the list, but these are enough for one day.

            The influence of the world interests me. There is the self; all our lives we work to establish it. There is the world; it influences us in many different ways.

I had searched for a theme in fairy tales and mythology. Religious stories are in the same category. I had searched the internet and found types of story structure. In one, “monomyth,” a story is based on a single tale, etc.

            I’m more worried about my cognitive situation. I’ve entered a new world. How do I live in it? Is it a story?