land, ho!

my father grew up in a country crossroad that when i was a child seemed like the prettiest little place on earth. he spent his first 17 years growing tall and fishing in wooded ponds, later working in the shop where his father sold Fords. when Daddy died, my brother told a story i had never heard. that when Daddy was working in the shop, my grandfather asked him to change the oil on a car, which he dutifully did. only he forgot to put new oil back into the car he was working on. so instead of inheriting the family business, my grandfather decided the boy who would become my daddy would be better off fixing people than fixing cars. so he sent my father to medical school.

i spent my childhood going back to my father's home, visiting my grandparents for a week during the summer. there is so much i remember about the place. the back yard swing where my grandfather used to push me into the sky. the storage house that smelled of moth balls but held a thousand treasures. the garden where we used to dig for potatoes and pick butter beans. the old shop, where we would sit in the showroom cars, turning the steering wheel and blinkers, then get cold cocolas from the old stoop-shouldered machine.

our visits also included 'going to ride,' which meant driving down quiet farm paths so my grandfather could check the crops growing on farms he had owned for some time. to my knowledge he didn't plant the rows himself, but he was overseer. one summer, he took friend Lydia and me down the path to see the largest hogs we'd ever seen in our lives.

over the years, as we headed to and from the beach, i would try to point out that farm but could never quite find it. then a couple of years ago, Daddy asked us to go back. 

though my grandparents have been gone for years, he wanted us to see the landmark of their legacy — the three small farms that are now leased, the land worked. Daddy wanted us to know where they were, so we would not forget. 

so we drove down country roads to the familiar places of my childhood and his. the first farm stands between my grandparents' burial place and their house, and that spring, before the crops went in, we could see their breakfast room window from their graves. 

and then down another road and a surprise. a family cemetery i had never seen, where my great-grandfather Moses Byrum is laid to rest. i still can't figure out why i never knew it was there.

and then, back to the farm where those hogs once grew, an expanse of winter wheat waving at us along the short drive toward the old house and barn. i watched, as Daddy's eyes scanned the horizon, the circle of land his father owned that now belonged, in part, to him. And i wondered what would become of it. 

turns out, Daddy knew. 

a few weeks ago, as we headed to the beach, we made a couple of stops with the kids. first, to the family cemetery where their great-great grandfather is buried. then on to the farm where as an 11-year-old, i had tried to pet a few gigantic pigs.

the kids took pictures, as i recounted my last visit there with their grandparents, Daddy in his favorite yellow sweater, Mama telling me how she tried to convince my grandfather to be more progressive and put indoor plumbing in the tenant house, almost 60 years before.

my siblings and i now own this farm with my aunt, my father's sister. Daddy gave us this land in his will. which i have to say was a big surprise. we did not expect anything... and though i always knew he loved this farm, i never imagined he would entrust its future to us. cityfolk though we all are.

i don't think i have ever owned anything outright. maybe a toaster. a book. a pair of shoes. but not land. 

land.

as i write this i don't know quite what to say. even after close to 25 years in our current house, the bank still owns a small part. cars? all loans, though one is coming close to being paid off. i know people who buy cars with cash, but we have never been able to do that. 

but cars are not the same as land.

land. 

the thing that drew the Israelites from Egypt and

 kept them going, 

the thing that kept Noah and Christopher Columbus in the boat, kept Scarlett O'Hara from losing her mind. (well, maybe not.) 

it is a small plot, considering. 

but it is ours. and it is land our father loved, and our grandfather before him, so there you have it.

we often joked in years past that we would one day own a third of a half of something — this land — just about enough to put a lawn chair on so we could watch the sunset on a summer Sunday afternoon.

guess i didn't count on it actually coming true. and now, though i am pretty sure where the sun will go down on a summer Sunday, i am wondering just where Daddy would want us to place those chairs.

susanbyrumrountree.com is the original work of author susan byrum rountree. all written work and photography is copyright protected and can only be used with written permission of the author.

what's the matter?

i've been using my fridays in january as writing days. holidays done, no time-sensitive lists to check off, so there are no excuses not to get back at it. (though i write for a living, this kind of writing i do for my life.)

for three fridays in the past month i actually did. write. i've gone through the umpteenth revision of that novel i have been working on for so long it is now a period piece. but on this friday so far, i have ordered a couple of things online, checked FB for updates, read my daughter's blog, responded to 12 emails, made two phone calls and served my dog a piece of cheese, all the while hearing this tiny inner whine: why are you wasting time?

is the fact that february is here an excuse?

there were many days in the past 35 years when it like felt writing was wasting time. it didn't seem to matter to anyone but me, really.

writers, though, are vain people. we want to be read. so i kept at it, thinking one day somebody would read something i had written, and it would matter to them. i did get a job as a writer, eventually. so though it never really paid my rent, that was something.

as a working writer, i've had my share of articles published, some mattering more than others. i once wrote a story for my college alumni magazine for the anniversary of the nursing school there, and i stumbled on a vocal administrator who revealed the true story in nursing at that time: that every hospital in the country was short many nurses, which endangered patients. a dear nurse-friend agreed to be interviewed about how this heretofore undocumented nursing shortage affected her job, and she almost lost that job because her employer didn't want that particular story told. we rewrote the lede using her story but not her name, and after the piece ran in the alumni magazine, stories about the shortage showed up in newspapers and magazines all over the place.

in the late 90s i wrote a newspaper article about one of my favorite places and soon  began researching a book that led to actually writing one* (and finishing it), which led to a tiny little book tour. i felt pretty much like cinderella the summer the book came out, people showing up to see me. finally, i had the kindergarten storyteller's stool again. it had been a very long wait.

that year, i also reached another goal: my words showed up once a month in the paper i had dreamed of writing for for years. my assignment was to write my life down — something i had been doing pretty much all my life, but now, well, a little over hundred thousand people might actually read my words. and i'd get a check for a couple of dollars to boot. i had been working toward this particular goal for years, finding one editor who loved my work, another who said essays didn't matter to people reading the daily news. so when yet another called and asked me to submit one for consideration for a new column in the works, i thought finally, this will matter to someone besides me.

my first story ran on Feb. 13, 2001, and i (sort of) made fun of my husband — who dislikes Valentine's Day with a passion — and revealed that my favorite flower is the bachelor's button. i shared the foibles of his attempts on our first Valentine's Day to find a bloom you can't find anywhere in the middle of winter. special order only.

late that afternoon when i went to check the mail, i found a giant silk version of my favorite stem stuck in the ground next to the front stoop. as secret admirer perhaps? (it serves as the background for this blog.) proof that at least one person had read my little story.

the next 17 months of columns would take me through college applications and acceptances, a daughter's leave-taking and a son's guitar picking. a 20th anniversary & my parent's 50th. my husband's sailboat and an accident that claimed the life of one of my daughter's classmates, all served as fodder for the story of my life. 9/11 begat two columns — one, me trying to cling to some sense of normal by chronicling the years of my daily walk, the other, at Christmas, when i just didn't feel like doing Christmas at all.

by then i was receiving emails from readers, sometimes more than a dozen if particular words hit their mark. the Christmas column garnered one angry reader, who said my job was to make light of life, not to remind readers of how dark it sometimes is. another said i was depressed and needed medication. a few thanked me for articulating their post 9/11 feelings. somehow my story became everybody else's.

you never know, when put yourself out there, how people will take you.

when i wanted to write about my book being published, my querulous** editor said it would be self-serving. i asked her how, if i was supposed to write about my life could i not touch on finally reaching a life-long goal? she relented, and the story became not so much about the book as my life as an essay writer living in a family who doesn't really care for their lives being lived out on paper. 

what i thought would be the pinnacle of my writing career ended the week the Pea left for college. after 18 months, the column was gone.

"what they don't tell you about babies is that they leave," i wrote then... "right from the minute they're born, they are leaving you. you're ready, of course, because your toes are swollen, their knees crowding your rib cage and you say, if only they would go ahead and come out. and then they do and you say, oh, i didn't realize. didn't realize... that soon enough they'll learn to walk without holding your hand, put on a shirt by themselves even if it's the wrong color, draw out their ABCs in large blocks. later they will learn Algebra, which you never could do, and spell words like plethora, which you can. and while they're learning all these things, they're looking into your eyes, saying 'i will never leave you,' and they are lying. and you didn't realize when you look back and say, 'don't ever leave,' you're lying, too." *

i wrote those words quickly in 2002, not even thinking about them except that i had to get them out of my head or else i would break apart. i was upset that my child was leaving and that a lifelong passion was as fleeting a raising a child seemed to be at that moment. i wasn't thinking about who might read my words, or how my feelings might affect someone else's (except maybe the Pea, that she would say, awww, (lying) i really wish i could stay with you.)

no. i was just being selfish. 

i certainly never expected that i would almost forget i even wrote those words and then 11 years later, would pick up my phone at my day job and the caller would tell me exactly how my words had changed her. 

but that's what happened. a work call one morning this week about an event i'm helping plan, from a young correspondent for the same newspaper where my words once appeared. at the end of fact-checking, she said: i sent you an email — me fully expecting her to follow with: weeks ago, but you never answered — but instead she said: years ago, when you wrote a story about your daughter and how you couldn't wait for her be born and that spoke to me.

so much so, in fact, that she emailed me to say thank you. and that she was a young mom at the time who dreamed of being a writer. like me. 

like me. 

i had been that girl, 30 years ago.

though i don't remember it, i had written her back an encouraging email which she had saved all these years and now she is one. a writer. for several online publications. her 3-year-old is now 12. and doesn't want her mother writing stories about her anymore.

and here i have been thinking these past weeks that i am just to the light side of awful. 

i probably don't need to tell you that a choke took hold in my throat right then, and the tears swelled at the edges of my eyes. and all i could say was thank you. you have changed me with this call. (when i confessed that i don't read her column about being a mom, she said: that's ok, you're old. (old?) 

well, yes, i guess i am. 

'all the stories are written,' she said of her column, which she is thinking of ending, but i say no. hardly. new stories come around every single day, stories of you, with those around you as supporting cast. you just have to start.

later, i shared all this with the Pea. i know how her daughter feels, she said.

mattering matters. whether we are writers or weeders, caregivers or takers, loafers or sprinters, makers or menders, swimmers or water-treaders. all of us want to believe that somehow the ripples we leave even as we tread that water badly sometimes, will mean something good to our little corner.

it is a rare day when we find out that yes, they do. 

so i keep at it, treading through my day, weeding and weaving the stories, about the Pea and her brother, the Skipper and the dog who loves cheese, hoping that as i put one word after another, the story laid there will matter, if just to me.

now... back to that book.

* (the next year i self-published a collection of essays, ahead of my time apparently... and ever the poor marketer, i am now practically giving them away.if you'd like a copy of either book, contact me. both books are now out of print! 
 ** i could probably use her now, though i hate to admit that.

writemuch.blogspot is the original work of author susan byrum rountree. all written work and photography is copyright protected and can only be used with written permission of the author.

Community

Reverb10: Where have you discovered community, online or otherwise, in 2010? What community would you like to join, create or more deeply connect with in 2011?

Work — My office walls are a pale lavender — a color my office-mate and I chose a couple of years ago thinking it soothing, particularly in summer. Though we weren't thinking of it as a liturgical color (purple is Advent and Lent,) it seemed the pale hint of purple seemed to fit with our liturgical jobs. With this soft hue surrounding us, we have shared our stories, our ideas and our work space. Parishioners stop in to visit — and occasionally to share a pastoral need — and if it's their first visit, they look around at the walls and say, are these walls purple? Yes, we say, and we invite them in to experience what purple can do for the soul.

Lee and I, and my other friend who inhabit the office wing of our parish, usually share lunch on Tuesdays. In the last year, this ritual has become much more important to me than just food for the body. Those who tag along each week might be different, but as we commune over soup or burgers or the special of the day, as trite as it sounds, we fill ourselves with soul food. Over lunch we've solved creative quandaries, built each other up, laughed and cried, encouraged and consoled, returning to our purple room quenched and ready to start again.

I worship where I work, and when I come into the church on Sundays, kneeling as I come into the pew, I look up, then around at those entering the church. The first time I came to my church, I honestly prayed: God, is this the right one? So hungry I was, new in what had been my college town, seeking community somewhere. (I have written about this before.) When I rose from the pew that day 21 years ago, the first person I saw was a woman I had known from my childhood, the older sister of my brother's best friend. My past community, reaching out to this new one, and I stayed. I raised my family here.

Writing — Nothing fuels my work more than sitting down with other writers to gnaw a little while on words and ideas. Dawn and Jane and Elaine, Candy and Diane, Miriam and Lynne and Melanie are just a few of the folks that spark my writing energy. Years ago, I had no sense of community in my writing, simply toiled away alone at my bedroom table, hoping one day somebody would know me. I first met Dawn after answering a notice in the NC Writer's Network Newsletter for people who wanted to join a writer's group. (Who knew there was an entire COMMUNITY, just for writer's in our state?) 

Dawn and I have been critique partners for about 15 years now, both of us working as professional communicators during our days, our nights and weekends spent noveling, when we can. Though that original group no longer exists, writers come and go, depending upon their place in the writer's journey. We met Jane at an NC State workshop. She writes wonderful stories, and in a lot of them people are driving places. It seems to be a metaphor for Jane, who is going places as a craftsman of words. Elaine is new to our group, young and committed to this thing that for all of us has pulled since we were small. My other writing friends, CDM&L, meet semi-regularly for supper and support, and when we met last week, we laughed at the fact that when we first began these suppers, we spend all of our synergy talking about our craft. Now, some 10 years later, we talk about our hearing loss, our cancer, our grandchildren and those we hope for. But we always leave our discussions filled with a new power.

Melanie has not yet owned the fact that she is a writer, not yet. But she will. The mother of three young girls, she is a keen observer of what living a life of faith and raising children in it is all about, and she is just trying to get it write.(yes, I did mean it two ways.) She casts daily life in lyrical phrases, tossing them like softly spun silk against the wind for others to catch and twist around their fingers for a little while. Her stories inhabit you, they are that good. You can read her latest piece here. (click on December, and read page 8). 

Living within this writerly community keeps me whole, even if I can't manage to write so much as a grocery list, I know they believe in me, even when I don't.

Cloos' Club — I can't complete this post without writing about the folks at Cloos', a place on the other side of town where some of my friends and I gather on Fridays to commune over the most awesome French fries in these here parts. We've been gathering for about 10 years I guess, crunching on those fries and giggling, mostly, about friendship, husbands, church and sex (yes, at Cloos' Club we can mention that in the same phrase). I've been writing a novel based (loosely) on our Friday experiences for what seems like a lot of years... I so close to finishing it's scary.

Cloos' Club all dressed up!

I might not be a part of this group if it weren't for Sandy, (shown above with the fabulous Charlotte) — the most inclusive person I know. She invited me to lunch some years ago to meet her friend Greer, because we both like books, and when our venue was torn down, we moved to Cloos'. Along came Trina and her sister Anna, then Sidney and Walker joined us later on. Sandy has a song for every moment, and she can play a mean nose guitar, even when she isn't asked. Cloos' is the kind of place where if they really do know your name when you walk in, and often your favorite thing to order. It's a real community, the people who come to Cloos', and it is not just about the food. When I turned 50, the entire place sang Happy Birthday. What a wonderful moment that was.

The community I'd like to connect with more deeply next year? Family.