Being lost

This September, my husband and I set off on a tour of remote places: the Lost Coast, Big Sur, and Southeastern Oregon. We always like to hike and adventure but this time felt an overarching psychological need to escape the ever-drumming ticker tape of terror and by doing so, regain connection with a greater authenticity. Not so coincidentally, with the exception of Big Sur, we visited places central to Tessa and Larry’s journey in “It’s Always 9/11”: Oregon’s ponderosa pines and deserts; California’s far northern “state of Jefferson”; suburban San Francisco (family and laundry, maybe Marietta and Sebastian as well); “Galactica Winery”; and of course the Lost Coast. From Mattole Beach, we looked up at the headlands where Tessa and Larry found temporary refuge.

And did we regain connection with a greater authenticity? Yes. The land—everywhere—from crashing ocean waves and tall cliffs to the vast empty spaces of the Steen’s Mountain area were so starkly, stunningly gorgeous that it almost hurt. Flocks of birds, seals, whales, went about their business independent of us. At night the sky was flooded with stars,, stretching back through space and time. Despite the absence of manmade lights the sky wasn’t dark. It glittered with light. The overwhelming landscape both dwarfed and enclosed us. I’ve felt more alone walking down the empty streets of our city neighborhood, everybody hiding in their houses. I did not realize how much anger and anxiety I’d been holding for the past three years until I felt it rise to the surface and drift away.

As for the people we met along the way, they came in all stripes. Many did not want to be found. Many no doubt had backstories, as do we all. The vast majority were friendly, and free of the stifling, guarded anxiety we’ve been surrounded by for far too long. Refreshingly free of judgement as well.

Observing is an essential component of writing, and most writers, myself included, are at heart observers. Yet I’ve found that truly great writing has to transcend observation. At a certain level you have to be one with your characters, what you’re writing about has to come from within you, and if that’s not the case in your first few drafts, your characters will reach out from the printed pages and pull you in. That’s certainly true of Tessa and Larry, but also Griffin and Lucille, Sebastian and Marietta. There’s something in me that wants to go beyond where the highway ends. To be on an empty beach, a thick forest, to strip off any coverings, mental or physical. Not to be found.

Meanwhile we are back home surrounded by the chattering ticker tape with refreshed eyes, trying to hold onto this reminder of how vast, incomprehensible and gorgeous our world (universe) is, while holding on to that curious heart, that precious equanimity.

Writerly Obsessions

When I read several books by one author, no matter how dissimilar their subject matter ostensibly certain themes inevitably recur. I once read the entire works of Flannery O’Connor: mundane life in the South punctuated by horrible tragedy. Ethan Canin writes about tension between siblings. Scott Spencer obsesses about obsession. Some of this is conscious choice, but I believe most of it stems from the subconscious.

In my fictional career, I’ve written two published novels (Wrong Highway, It’s Always 9/11); several unpublished short stories; and an almost finished screenplay (Liability Insurance). If I cast the same analytical gaze on my own writing, I come up with several repeating themes:

1). Gutsy if sometimes foolhardy female protagonists

2) A craving for authentic experience, a tug between being drawn to danger and a retreat to shelter and the illusion of safety

3) Children—usually teenagers, sometimes younger children

4) Lots of food and music references. I always hear a soundtrack as I write.

5) Road trips

6) Ambiguous endings

The genesis of a lot of this is obvious. I believe in writing what I know. I am female. I have a strong personality. I try to be gutsy. I always feel the tug mentioned in (2). I have four children and six grandchildren. Food and music are very important to me. I’ve been on some revelatory road trips. I believe life is nuanced and ambiguous. Yet sometimes I set out to write and purposely try to avoid one of these obsessions—but they inevitably sneak in in some form. I guess they need to see the light.

Ticker Tape of Terror

One of the features of “It’s Always 9/11” is the “Ticker Tape of Terror”. On one level this is literal, referring to the litany of bad news that runs on a ticker tape below the smiling television newscaster, varying in content but consistent in its message of fear. On another level, it is more amorphous and all encompassing, evident to anyone who’s ever “doomscrolled” down their news feed.

With the demise of print news, I’ve grown acutely aware of the overarching nature of this bad news, and the way it comes in waves. For a long time it was Covid, Covid, Covid. Relentless statistics of hospitalizations and deaths, possible symptoms, worldwide devastation. When certain restrictions were implemented, or re-implemented the emotional manipulation truly ramped up. We got articles about how people who find masking uncomfortable have psychopathic tendencies, the best masks to buy, “forever maskers”, the wonders of mRNA technology, how the grocery store is the most dangerous place you can be, how even small family gatherings could be super spreader events even shots from morgues or tapes of people in the last throes of dying from Covid. During these two years people died of heart attacks, of cancer, in droves from drug overdoses, alcoholism, and suicide, unphotographed, unreported. Stock phrases came and went. When “flatten the curve” no longer applied, it disappeared from the lexicon. We were told to “follow the science” until the science indicated a more nuanced perspective and then that phrase disappeared.

Then after two years, Covid abruptly disappeared from the headlines. Evidently, we were post pandemic. The new terror was the Russian invasion of the Ukraine. Terrible as it was, it was only one of many conflicts around the globe and not exactly the first time a global power had invaded a small sovereign country. For a few weeks it was presented as the beginning of WWIII, atomic bombs about to drop, run for the bomb shelter. Meanwhile we could sign up for 24/7 news alerts and refuse Russian vodka.

Not to worry. The war in the Ukraine continues, with no lesser degree of damage, but only as backstory. The occasional mass shooting intrudes. A dash of monkeypox. Testimony that the President of the United States actively supported the armed insurrection on January 6, physically threatening his own Secret Service detail.

What happens to the forgotten stories? Does civil war continue in Syria? Are black people still being beaten by police? And oh yeah, climate change. Heat domes, floods, melting Antarctic ice, anyone?

What will be the next big story?

I vacillate between believing that shadowy powers that be are pushing their mysterious agenda and the more likely possibility that the ebbs and flows of the ticker tape of terror are non-ideological, largely the result of algorithms gone wild. Are new sources of terror introduced largely as novelty, ie people are bored with the old koolaid, let’s give them a new flavor? Do they garner more eyeballs, sell more advertising?

A population continually assaulted by a ticker tape of terror grows jaded. They want to live their lives after all, and not through a haze of fear. Twenty children shot in an elementary school. Oh, what a shame. The demise of our democracy? Scary. But nothing can be done. Thoughts and prayers. What’s for dinner?

One of the hallmarks of totalitarian takeover is a population that believes in nothing, trusts none of our institutions of media, law, science. That is the point we are at in our society, but we are not happy about it. We are anesthetized but do not want to be. We want to feel deeply, we want our lives to matter. A population that trusts in nothing will believe anything.