Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Going back to come forward to Etched

A few days ago I received an email from my Editor.  Her comments sent me spinning…not in a bad way but in an unbelievable grinning like a Cheshire cat kind of way.  There was an overwhelming sense of accomplishment.  Not accomplishment because I’d finished writing “Etched” but an amazing sense of accomplishment of finally seeing the millions steps I’d envisioned when I started this pilgrimage as little girl growing up in Barbados, West Indies, dwindle down to a sacred few.
Editor’s comment, “….the book really speaks to the reader, really involves them. I love manuscripts like this, it's so exciting to read something that takes over your whole mind.
Now I’m standing on the threshold of the beginning of another million step pilgrimage and this time it’s not as scary as the first million step pilgrimage because I’ve fulfilled that childhood dream.  I’ve strung together letters, words, sentences and paragraphs and the end result is—Etched.
Many years ago, in Barbados, a little girl—(me) dreamed of someday writing a book. This dream started rather simply.  I was introduced to letters and then, amazed that they could be combined to make words and then strung together to become sentences my life changed .  Life as I knew it would never be the same.  This stringing of letters to words to sentences to paragraphs to books became the things I wanted to do.   I wanted to know how authors, did that so I could do it too.
That curiosity was fed by a teacher at my primary school.  This teacher was in charge of the school library and realizing, that I had a voracious appetite for books he fed me book, after book, after book.  He fed them to me the way we do paper shredders today. However, one day the unthinkable happened.  I’d done something that no other student had done before.  I’d read all the books in the library—we’d run out of books.  The little school library didn’t have a book in it that I hadn’t read.
Reading out the school library must be understood in the true context of what the library was.  It was located in a public primary school in Barbados during the late 1960s.  Barbados had recently gained its independence from England and was for all intents and purposes—a toddler nation.  It was an island that was still swathed in colonial customs, a public school system set up to educate (and well) an all Negro (don’t know if we were Negroes—might have been Black then) so with that in mind you’ll know that the library wasn’t exactly the New York Public Library.
Anyway with no more books left and my appetite still wide open for more books he, the teacher, gave me the only book I hadn’t attempted to read—the bible.  This bible was the size of bibles you can find on the pulpit of any big Black church. With my super size prize in hand I struggled home.  I remember the weight but that didn’t matter to me. I was in possession of the biggest book I’d ever seen and that was the only thing that mattered. I was blissfully happy in the ignorance of the task I’d undertaken.
I remember getting home and my father, God bless him, looked at me and my prize and said, “I guess he finally found a way to be rid of you.  It should take you the rest of your life to read that thing.”  My feelings were hurt but I had reading to get to so I didn’t dwell too long on his remark.  I started reading and that was the best usage of letters I’d ever encountered.  I wanted to write stories like the ones in the bible.
I not only read the stories in the bible but I added/made up stories to go along with the ones that were there.  I read the story of David and Goliath and since David’s story was already written I wrote Goliath’s story.  When I got to the story of King David’s children: Ammon, Tamar and Absalom I got into Ammon’s head.  I knew what he was thinking when he saw Absalom coming.  He, Ammon,  knew he had to make peace with God and quickly.  It’s a good thing he was a quick with his prayers because in my version when he said, “Amen” he was already standing at the gates of Hell.  That’s the only place you can go for raping your half sister. I didn’t make this up. Ammon unable to accept common sense and reason from Tamar his half sister that he shouldn’t do that ‘thing’ to here decided that he had to have her. In his ‘having’ her he’d dishonored his family and honor had to be restored.  Absalom, Tamar’s full brother, took Ammon out.  Just like that.
I also learned about romance from the bible.   In the Song of Solomon in verse two (2) she says, “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth for thy love is better than wine.”  In verse five (5) she says, “I am black, but comely and in verse six (6) it says...I am black because the sun hath looked upon me: my mother’s children were angry with me; they made me the keeper of the vineyards, but mine own vineyard have I not kept.

Having figured out by then to string words together I was able to see right inside this story.  The untold story was deeper than anything in the bible.  By then I knew that they were all Africans but what propelled me to think deeper and differently was the constant reference to being Black.  Her blackness got her ostracized.  Her mother’s children…not her brothers or sisters but her mother’s children—she didn’t share full parent-ship with these siblings. Did her mother ‘step’ out and the rest of the family knew so they had to keep her out of sight thereby sending her into the vineyard.  Now of course I understood that with her out there tending their vineyards hers of course, went unattended. The first version of Cinderella ever talked about.
That book helped me to understand (and I could be wrong) interracial relationships steeped in passion.  I wanted to string my words together so I could tell those kinds of stories.  Now here I am embarking on another pilgrimage and it’s exciting. I’ve written Song of Solomon kind of romance and when my characters are Black…they are comely and awaiting kisses on their mouths.
Excerpt from Etched that shows a strong interracial love:
It’s true he was a white man and a Jewish one at that and, most of them didn’t have any uses for Negroes but this white man, that was Jewish, was different.  He was sweet on Aunt Bess and had been for years.  Naum Glassberg would have been happy to hang his hat and coat on Aunt Bess’ coat rack if she’d let him but she never did and now he, the white Jewish man that loved her had….

1 comment:

  1. Hey the editor has hit this on the head. Having had the privilege to have read some of this and privilage is indeed the right word I can only echo the comments made. I've always believed that the best books and indeed the best songs 'paint pictures' in your mind, and reading thisis like watching a film only better. It takes you on an emotional journey bringing out every nuance and feeling as you live along with the characters. I look forward to the finished item although I guess the finished item is just the beginning. The moments and there are many bringing together people cry out from this and good and evil, laughter and joy ring out. For some reason it touches me to change...Tom Paine said 'my country is the world and my religion is to do good' and this hope is encompassed in this work. I hope there's a happy ending! With love, Karl

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