Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with, it is a toy and an amusement;
then it becomes a mistress, and then it becomes a master, and then a tyrant.
– Winston Churchill
I dropped the last of the bulging black trash bags onto that Brooklyn sidewalk and rubbed the palms of my hands down the sides of my jeans; I scrutinized these, my worldly belongings stuffed into plastic and lined up at my feet, waiting forlornly to be carried away to the dump, with a touch of regret. I would have preferred that these mounds of clothes, books and memories went to friends, but there was precious little time for that. Like shedding an old skin, I was cleaning the slate of the old me, finally about to close the door of my troubled life. The most important thing at that place and time was quitting my disappointing job, emptying out my apartment, handing over the keys to my landlord, making my way to the airport and leaving this all behind. I was running away to Paris – with a sharp emphasis on the away rather than the to. My life was going nowhere fast and I was just plain tired of working for barely enough wages to pay a New York rent much less enjoy what the city had to offer. I was leaving behind a string of bad choices muddled with sadness. I needed a new beginning, craved a new life. It was time to move.
And start over. Again.
Less spontaneous than impulsive, I’ve never been one to quite think things through before acting. Rather, I have been in a constant state of motion, precipitously leaving one disappointing situation after another, one city after the next, simply grabbing onto any interesting opportunity that placed itself in front of me. My friends jealously saw this as the ultimate in cool bohemian adventure, able to pick up and move on a whim, choose a new city, a new country, slip into a new life with ease and pleasure at will, yet although I have always suffered from some strange strain of wanderlust I tended to move more for lack of anything better to do with my as yet unsettled life than out of some sense of adventure. I moved in order to escape my own existence, the barriers I had set up for myself, and the difficulty I had in working through my own troubles, the discomfort of my life. And that life, eight years of living on my own, had now been reduced to two battered suitcases stuffed with the bare necessities, my life savings of a few hundred dollars in traveller’s checks, a one-way ticket to Paris and a heady mix of elation and trepidation.
A NEW PATH TRAVELLED
The more intensely we feel about an idea or a goal, the more assuredly the idea,
buried deep in our subconscious, will direct us along the path to its fulfillment.
- Earl Nightingale
I had a long meeting with Bill Leblond, editorial director of food & wine at Chronicle Books (and cookbook editor of my beautiful friends Nancie McDermott, Jill O’Connor, Domenica Marchetti) during my visit to San Francisco, a meeting set up in order to discuss my various book projects. We sat for a lengthy moment and hashed out each idea. He urged me to begin the process of writing a book, a memoir, by posting bits and pieces of my stories, the book itself, as well as the process and evolution of the writing of it on my blog. This is a daunting, somewhat terrifying plan, revealing myself like this. Yet, he has a point. Feedback is a precious commodity and can help drive a writer’s force and guide a writer’s direction. And what better purpose for a blog? For my blog, which is already the beginning of the story.
We expect famous people, those who have made a public splash, a great discovery, have lived some kind of wild adventure or brave voyage of discovery to write a memoir or an autobiography. We buy them up, ogle more than read them, intrigued by how such a seemingly ordinary life can take such exciting twists and turns or fascinated by those born into luxury, wealth and opportunity. We try and peer deep into their souls and understand how they made it happen; we crane our necks trying to catch a glimpse of their greatness/oddness/specialness/craziness, more like leering at a car wreck than reading about the life of a fellow human being. We close the book, titillated and ready to share a bit of gossip, but we walk away with very little more.
But.
It is the ordinary people we relate to. We all live through the common adventures of life, the personal drama, the tragedies, the successes, the fear and happiness. We work out the kinks in our marriage; we deal with illness and the death of a loved one. We raise our kids, enjoying the hugs and suffering through the adolescent fits. We have our ups and downs, each tinted with humor, nostalgia and bleakness, irony and satire. The joys and the woes of everyday life. We look to see how others have faced the same situations, the same dilemmas we ourselves face and take comfort in knowing that we are not alone. We learn how others have dealt with things that we have been confronted with and understand. We empathize, we imbibe, we learn.
We all have a story to tell.
And here is the beginning of mine.
(a heartfelt thank you to Nancie McDermott, Bill Leblond, Kathleen Flinn and Ilva Beretta for pushing me over the edge)
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