I’m reading Julija Šukys’ book Epistolophilia, which is the biography of a woman who did her time in Dachau and felt the hand of torture on her gentile flesh for assisting the Jews in the ghetto of Vilnius, Lithuania. She writes, to her dear friend Kazys…

Even if you were a Christian, I wouldn’t want you to wish me entrance into heaven, when such a horrible hell is boiling on earth. Once there is heaven on earth, then there will be heaven in the soul and everywhere. Can anyone be happy when others suffer like this?

I open up my email and in it is one from a website which features documentary photographs and video of anything from Priscilla Presley’s 21′st birthday to an astronaut singing on the moon. But this time, staring out at me from my screen is this…

…a portrait from a series of photographs from Kutno, Poland, dated October 1939. The photographs were taken in the Jewish ghetto which was “liquidated” a few years later, all of its inhabitants (most likely, including this one) sent to an extermination camp.

She haunts me. Both women do, and their tales and their histories. Our history.

And then, again with randomness, I receive a link to the story of a documentary film called Between Two Worlds, which is causing bitter controversy within the Jewish community for its challenge to the status quo.

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These are difficult discussions, I know. They come from pain and anger, but are necessary, vital, particularly in light of my readings of what happened to Ona and so many others she tried to protect in Vilnius, to the unnamed woman in Kutno, and to all the other women, Jewish and Christian and Muslim, men and women and children of all faiths and beliefs, whose lives are affected today by this anger which “boils on earth.”

Words, yet again, can make all the difference, but only when human connections are made, when the dialogue is open and free, gut-wrenching and provocative—only then can words spoken in anger become measured and people who seemed so very different brought together to see how, in the end, very similar they are.

So. very. similar.

image from the boston public library

By their very nature, projects with children often lead to surprises. Either they embrace the oddest little detail from which they can’t be torn away, or they lose interest and succumb (rightly so) to the temptation of riding a bike or drawing or playing with a friend.

The tremendously complex, three-tiered project of lemon cupcakes (the cake, the curd, the meringue) kept me captive in the kitchen for a good chunk of the day, alone. (Yes, she heeded the call of the wild over that of lemon curd, and no, I will never again attempt such folly.)

The delicacy and exactness of baking never did settle well with me, and I felt the tug of my book which sat teasing me on the table, alongside my latest Letter In The Mail, from The Rumpus, which sat there full of possibility, still unopened.

Fortunately, I happened on an incredible documentary, “Soul of a People: Writing America’s Story” which is currently airing on the Smithsonian Channel. (watch it, tape it, share it)

It is the story of the Federal Writers’ Project, which I of course knew of, but most likely in the context of a long history class at a time in my life when it meant little to me, when the present and the future was far more compelling than the past. Today, however, it all seemed so remarkably relevant to what we are going through, as a nation and as a world, struggling with challenges yet overflowing with riches and untapped (and often unemployed) creativity.

Launched as part of FDR’s New Deal in 1935, the Federal Writers’ Project employed several thousand people, and in fewer than eight years produced 120 publications, of note the State Guides and the Slave Narratives, which captured the places and the voices which otherwise would have been lost forever. It died a messy death, as most good things often do, coming under the lens of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, sandwiched in between the Great Depression and WWII.

What is left is writing… amazing writing, and stories, incredible stories to read and hear, much of which is available online, gratis.

Margaret Walker, Richard Wright, John Cheever, and Saul Bellow, Ralph Ellison and John Steinbeck, Dorothy West and Zora Neale Hurston, Studs Terkel, Stetson Kennedy and a corps of writers, known and not-so, as well as photographers, musicians and so many others who put to paper what, and who, they found as they traveled the country.

It must be done again…I thought.

But naturally I am not the first to think so. It was, I soon found, discussed quite a bit in 2008, with a mention or a few in the years following.

image from the nat'l archives

There are, of course, other organizations who work towards documenting, capturing that which is rapidly fading, but to do so on a large scale, as a way of employing just some of the unemployed and at the same time enriching us all, would be a brilliant revisiting of what, in the end, proved to be an incredibly valuable effort. Just think of your favorite authors (and all the young writers who’ve yet to showcase their talents) and imagine if they were sent off to document our world, oh the things they would return with! Modern-day explorers.

Words, after all, are golden.

(I won’t submit you to some lame clichéd ending about how words last longer than a first meringue… but mmm, they do.)

lavender tutu by pink sherbet via flickr

Two thirds of the way through. 59,677 words. 333,027 characters. The third (fourth? fifth?) edit. I’ve lost count.

I’m at that stage where I think I have rewritten every paragraph, every word, every character, a thousand times, which I’ve been told is a sign that it is time to let go and oh how I want to, to finish this editing drudgery. I’m too much of a perfectionist to let it float away from me until at least I can feel that it makes sense, that the story is relatively well told. (And yes, I will need readers, ones who can read without fear of hurting my feelings even if they scratch out half of it with sharpies and say…”no, no, no, what were you thinking?” I will allow them to call me names, and I will feed them 72% dark chocolate—or milk, if they prefer—and rich espresso, or fragrant tea, depending on their preferences. But not yet. Not finished yet.)

I was a reader once, of an endless manuscript written in another tongue that I devoured in a marathon of sleepless nights over a Thanksgiving holiday when my family was far away and I was alone in the city. (Yes, it’s true, they couldn’t find anyone else to do it…sucker that I am.) Anyway…tucked in my little apartment, I lived and breathed this memoir (yes, it was a memoir) which might have been lovely had I liked it…but I loathed it. It did end up getting published and a movie was even made of it, which I suppose means that I was a terrible reader or simply had very different taste than the editors or the reading public. Oh, and the author killed himself prior to its publication, may he rest in peace, which creeped me out until I realized I was no one in the scheme of things, my little foray into formal readership brief and unnoticed… I hope.

I wonder if we could live our lives like that. Oh, I know we return to our pasts via our memories (and via facebook, which I’ve deactivated, at least for the time being). But what if we could edit our lives? What if we could erase certain passages, highlight others, bring into greater prominence some characters and minimize the impact of others. What if we could change the scene, write the dialogue, add or remove the drama, skip around in time and space. The past would then have no meaning, but perhaps the future would lose its import too, for in one fell swoop our lives would become a manuscript subject to our will.

But oh, this theory is so highly implausible. It would never, ever work. Not because of reality or its constraints…but imagine a world where multiple editors edited at the same time the same passages. Too many cooks to the nth degree. Above all, impossible to sync!

It would generate so many error messages we’d all just self-destruct. Poof.

Time for bed, and a weekend away from editing (and blogging). My brain is clearly…mush. Hence the image of the lavender tutu which has nothing to do with anything and I would never wear (but I do love the color).

The germ of the book began sprouting some twelve years ago when I first came across a collection of letters archived in Vilnius. Their author, a woman named Ona Šimaitė, had saved the lives of hundreds of Vilna Ghetto children and adults, and then had been arrested, tortured, and deported by the Gestapo.

The title of my book, Epistolophilia, means “a love of letters,” “an affection for letter-writing,” or “a letter-writing sickness,” and it refers to Šimaitė’s life-long dedication to her correspondence. She wrote on average 60 letters per month (therefore between 35,000 and 50,000 letters over her adult life)…

With great love and, as Julija puts it, a case of epistolophilia (the book involved research via the archives in three countries), the author has brought to her readers—as the title names it with such beauty—the writing of a life.

Through Epistolophilia, Julija Šukys follows the letters and journals—the “life-writing”—of this woman, Ona Šimaitė (1894–1970). A treasurer of words, Šimaitė carefully collected, preserved, and archived the written record of her life, including thousands of letters, scores of diaries, articles, and press clippings. Journeying through these words, Šukys negotiates with the ghost of Šimaitė, beckoning back to life this quiet and worldly heroine—a giant of Holocaust history (one of Yad Vashem’s honored “Righteous Among the Nations”) and yet so little known. The result is at once a mediated self-portrait and a measured perspective on a remarkable life. It reveals the meaning of life-writing, how women write their lives publicly and privately, and how their words attach them—and us—to life.

…how women write their lives publicly and privately, and how their words attach them—and us—to life. Our words, our lives, the connections which in some cases are critical not only to happiness but to survival itself. In Šukys’ book she tells us, via her own words and those of her subject, the fascinating story of this woman who slipped in an out of the German-occupied ghetto in Vilnius—

…to bring its prisoners food, clothes, medicine, money, and forged documents. She carried letters and messages. In one case, she brought a vial of strychnine for a friend to use if suicide became his only escape. She came out of the ghetto with letters to deliver and manuscripts to hide. In one case she stole away with a Jewish girl, and on others carried out sedated children in sacks. Occasionally she spent the night in the ghetto, sharing a bed with her opera-singing friend on evenings when she attended the ghetto’s concerts, plays, and art exhibits. She supported its most desperate by listening to their fears and responding to their letters—in most cases, the last ones they ever wrote.

flowers by amy merrick (emersonmerrick.blogspot.com)

Last night one of my favorite people-I’ve-never-met-but-feel-like-I’ve-known-forever came out of the closet…

…Sugar, dear Sugar, the beloved giver of advice whose columns on The Rumpus are so ineffably and intensely heartfelt, honest and beautiful that thousands of strangers felt the love for this previously anonymous person.

There are few things you read that transcend the words themselves. Her writing does. Indeed, in his introduction to the “unveiling” of Sugar’s real identity, Steve Almond said “I’m not going to ask you to raise your hand if you’ve cried during a Sugar column, for we all have.”

When sitting down to the latest “Dear Sugar” column, you never quite knew what she would say, but you were certain it would be wise and from the heart—it didn’t matter who or what she was addressing, somehow she made it relatable, personal.

“Radical Empathy,” was what Steve Almond called it. Revolutionary. He also likened her to Jesus Christ, to the Sermon on the Mount, which no doubt would shock some, but anyone who has read her work knows to what he refers… her humble humanity, her tenderness, the honesty of her responses and her fearlessness in exposing her own flaws while offering them.

It is lovely to see the praise for her literally pouring from the sides of this vast blogosphere.

Yes indeed, Sugar is none other than Cheryl Strayed, whose book “Wild” is coming out soon. Many of her other writings (including “The Love of my Life” which I found particularly moving and a great example of the gifted way she has of taking us along with her on a journey which, however painful and difficult, we would never want to miss. ) can be found on her website.

Stephen Elliott recently said, when discussing Sugar’s Magic and its power—

But being honest is not about being an “exposure junky” or telling all your friend’s secrets, or even your own. You already know your secrets, at least the ones near the surface. To write well, if we’re talking about personal essays, you have to re-imagine honesty, find out what you’re not telling yourself.

He also said…

That’s why we think of writers as brave, though they’re not. Not really. Not if I’m an example anyway. The paths I’ve taken pushed first by cowardice could map much of my personal geography.

Being humble, perhaps, but I disagree. Very courageous both of them in their writing. That’s why I read them both every chance I get.

image by Óscar Cuadrado via flickr

There is great value in narrative non-fiction, for it makes the unfamiliar, the ancient, come alive, become relevant. I will never forget a visit I made when I was in my 20′s to the ruins of Medinat al-Zahra in Córdoba.

The archaeologist who I was with used his words to make the crumbling ruins rise to their full glory, telling us of the mercury fountains, the gardens about which exotic animals roamed, the palace…all of which was buried in mud and unearthed after nearly a thousand years.

This was not my first ruin, but it changed forever the way I look at the past. It changed forever the way I look at all things closed and crumbly, knowing that there may be sparkling mercury pools within, that it’s just a matter of chiseling away at the caked mud which covers them.

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image by emdot via flickr

I hadn’t planned on posting today, but as I waded about in a sea of bla-bla-bla valentine’s soup in my daily review of the news and blogs, etc., I came across this piece of perfection, which I thought I’d share a nibble of (although I suggest you read the full post, here). It’s really just so lovely.

I have a habit of proposing to my husband. I do it all the time. I see him standing at our shelf, pulling some article of clothing out and holding it up to see if he wants to wear it, and my heart gets a little bigger. “Can I marry you?” I ask. “Yes.” “Today?” “Let’s do it!” he says.

Or, we sit next to each other on the couch. I hug his arm. (He has very huggable arms.)

“Can I live with you forever?” “Can we spend our lives together?” “I would really like to marry you.” There are many ways that I ask. His answer is always the same. Yes. Yes. Yes. Absolutely. I’d love to. YES.

I’m goofy, I know, but this is what faithfulness is really about isn’t it? Saying “I will marry you,” over and over and over and over. Even if you’re the husband and cute girls are always making eyes at you, or you’re the wife and you can tell that guy at the café finds you attractive, which is flattering because you feel like an old mom who is always picking toys out of the cracks in the furniture.

You turn away from them and say, “I want to marry you,” right to your husband or wife. You say it again and again and again with your presence. Marriage is a greenhouse for love. The greenhouse is wild and deep and grows remarkable things that can’t be grown over night. Some flowers take ten years to grow. Some, sixty.

The greenhouse is interesting and funny and witty and wild.

This is love.

It’s odd what you remember.

I remember a car, which is particularly odd as I am not a car person. I barely notice them, and I hate to drive.

But ohhhh I remember this one. It was chocolate brown and long, so endlessly long, its sleek hood curving up and sliding down to its wide metal face.

It was a Toronado. I even loved to say it, over and over, letting its name roll over my tongue with languor.

How could I forget? I was eight.

One of the few good things my mother had to say about my father was what a good driver he was, a defensive one. He always said a long car saved his life late one night when a ditch slid silently before him on a dark road.

“I’ll never let you drive a Volkswagen,” he said, but I did, long after he was gone. Deep in the recesses of my mind I was always aware that it was not a Toronado, that I was not truly safe the way I had been, wrapped in its steely brown grasp.

He would drive up with a wide smile and park it so I could invite my friends to come in, to sit in the driver’s seat and move the shiny controls which made the seats slide with a slow lazy buzz and the windows lower as if by magic.

No one’s father had a car like this one except mine. It’s odd what you remember.

Three women on my radar somehow met in my mind. One a writer, one a singer, the other once a leggy intern who caught the president’s eye. Three young women (Lolitas, perhaps) who at once entice, fascinate, frighten and repel. Three women who challenge the status quo, confident in their power yet inevitably at the mercy of those they please.

Marie peeks out from behind her pseudonym, spilling out her life and veiling it as fiction. Lana, who was once Lizzie, tucks her past in mystery and trailer parks as she sings deep haunting songs with lips that cannot be real. Mimi held her secrets for decades as she raised children and grandchildren and spent her time at church, telling us only now how she made wedding plans while being asked (and obliging) to “take care” of the president’s friends.

Three women. Three strong and vulnerable women. Three young women navigating the treacherous currents of life and love and sex and art and the critics who like jackals wait to let loose their trilling cries.

image by dustinsapenga via flickr

The Burmese pythons are eating their way through the Everglades. At first it sounded like one of those titles you see at the checkout counter, but apparently it’s true. Invasive species taking over the world. There are bullies in the animal world just as there are in the human world who go where they do not belong (although in the poor burmese python’s case it was not his fault, but a combination of man’s and mother nature’s: breeders + hurricane). You won’t find me in sunny Florida anytime soon.

I did, however, hit the wilds of the urban jungle for a brief night’s respite from the burbs and parenthood. An interesting experiment it was. We walked for miles and miles and took in the streets as though we’d never seen them before. We joined the younger hipper Euro tourists and rented a hotel room which felt like the inside of an ipod—tiny and white and neon blue and beautiful and efficient and oh so cool. Despite the fact that we could have hopped a bus or a train and been in our beds in under an hour we pretended that we were far, far away from home.

We tried to look at the city from a new perspective, and in doing so it occurred to me how much tamer, gentler, sanitized it has become. Through gentrification and commercialization the poor have been pushed away (we know, of course, that they more than exist, they flourish). Times Square is no longer seedy but like a big ol’ playground, Hell’s Kitchen has become a mecca for foodies, the East Village a cooler version of the West and… It was a great night.

But New York is not just a tourist’s paradise, and not everyone is fortunate to treat themselves to a night on the town. While the streets are full of people of all nationalities (I still love that idea of dropping a net on a city block in midtown and seeing what you catch), they are not all there to spend their hard-earned euros or rubles, leus or pounds on food or clothes or Broadway shows. Some are brought here by force or false pretense, and others are here to buy them.

I just finished reading Corban Addison’s A Walk Across the Sun, a novel about two young girls who, through tragedy, end up orphaned and are swept up into the sex trade. One of them ends up in New York, which is not surprising as JFK is one of the five top hubs internationally for human trafficking.

Apparently this activity is intense right now, on the cusp of the Super Bowl. The dark side of supply and demand. Ugh. Indeed the lovely Sisters of St. Joseph in Kalamazoo are all over the news for pooling their resources with hotels and with state government officials to bring to the foreground the issue of human trafficking during the testosterone-filled Super Bowl. Kudos to them.

I definitely recommend Addison’s book. The topic is so important yet is often lost in the noise of crises and issues which seem so distant. It is too easy to tune out, yet via a novel it comes alive. Our empathies are afire, the victims become people, not statistics. Or, in his words,

Fiction has the power to really change a person’s way of seeing the world so that it really engages the intellect but it also engages the heart.

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 *One of the most popular search terms which leads to my site is “porn,” for part of the title of a post I did about my disgust over the way we parade across our screens the deaths of our perceived enemies. Hence the word change, to avoid opening my door to those who might have the wrong idea of what my blog is all about…

This is my latest desktop image, something I change often. I came across this on pinterest, and forgive me for not crediting, but I didn’t save its source’s name. The reason is that it was some sort of DIY (shhh actually the lights are painted dots of glow-in-the-dark paint) which scared me because anything that glows like that can’t be good for you, right? Nonetheless, it is beautiful.