Mary Cassatt: Meditation (1883)

You Were A Gem
My first wife's mother, Nancy, my first mother-in-law and kids' grandma, died this week, aged ninety-six. Her mother, "Grandma Nelly,"  had lived into her nineties before her, just like most purebred Norwegian women do. She was an educator and a former Dean of both Seattle Central Community College and Chemekita Community College in Salem, OR. She profoundly influenced me, her son-in-law, who had been designated Not College Material in high school. She encouraged me to continue my education after I'd been out of high school for seven years. She gave me a book that showed me what my working-class upbringing had never known. It explained which clothes fit what conditions, when to wear a brown suit and what to wear with it, and how to comport myself in business, stuff my business school studies never covered. I learned to dress at a price point above my station and to shop the all-essential menswear sales. Her master's degree was in home economics, and her PhD was in education. She was a whiz in the kitchen and could paint, hang wallpaper, and sew with the best of them. She finally convinced her caregivers to stop trying so hard to prolong her life. She told them this dying stuff was boring, like watching paint dry. She died like she'd always lived, on her own terms. Rest In Peace, Nancy. You were a gem!

——

Weekly Writing Summary

In this Exiled Story, I disclose my dread of Suburbia and how we avoided ending up there.

William Michael Harnett: For Sunday’s Dinner (1888)
"I said I thought I might be able to live there …"
—
This Exiled Story finds me bathing in TheLight we found when we relocated to Colorado. I had ached to see TheLight again before leaving The East, where light comes muted and less inspiring.

Warren Mack: Colorado Landscape (First half, 20th Century)
"The last half of our Exile would surely cast lasting shadows."
—
This Exiled Story, AWriter_(1), recounts how I became AWriter while Exiled. I began after decades of writing experience and well after becoming a best-selling author, all achieved without actually being AWriter yet.

Jan Ekels II: A Writer Trimming his Pen (1784)
"I wasn't quite a writer yet …"
—
This Exiled Story, AWriter_(2), describes yet another Exile embedded within my Exile that would provide preconditions necessary for me to recognize myself as AWriter.

John La Farge: The Dawn [Former Title: Dawn on the Edge of Night] (1899)
" … before I could properly proclaim myself AWriter."
—
This Exiled Story, AWriter_(3),finally closes the circle by telling the story of how I ultimately became AWriter. The change started in a second and continues reinforcing to this very morning.

Edouard Vuillard: Album Cover for Landscapes and Interiors (1899)
"I became AWriter by typing with my two-and-a-half typing fingers: Another Summer."
—
This Exiled Story, AWriter_(4), completes the story of how this humbled Exile came to become AWriter. It amounted to merely making a promise and then keeping it thousands of times until, through simple iteration, AWriter emerged.

Lambert Antoine Claessens, After Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn: Philosopher, Meditating(18th-19th century)
" … evidence that I'm at least still trying to make some difference."
—
This writing week was one of the most personally revealing I've experienced. I began explaining the difference between the first and second parts of our long Exile, where TheLight turned Colorado bright. We avoided moving into a conventional Suburbia, sidestepping a massive serving of crow I would have been obligated to eat after denigrating those 'burbs for most of my life. After setting that stage, I began to peel back the layers of how my Exile helped to turn me, previously a mere author, into AWriter. I offered no advice, just some portraits of what my writing work looks and feels like in practice. I'd never before shared some of what I included in those stories, but rather than feeling embarrassed as if I'd disclosed too much, I ended my writing week feeling closer to some fundamental truth I had not been completely clear about. I previously thought I knew how deeply being Exiled had influenced my professional development. Once I'd exhausted myself trying to recover what I'd lost, then adequately frustrated myself fiddling with what would have to become eternally unfinished business, I felt free to engage as I probably should have been engaging forever. By the end of the writing week, I had firmly established myself as a meditative writer, AWriter, after all. Thank you for following along!

©2024 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Exiled, #PureSchmaltz