[stylist] Sharing Memoir and question

Tue Jul 17 19:24:01 UTC 2012

Thanks for the good information, Jackie! I always forget how to do a word 
count, as I seldom do it.
I have gone back into it and worked on it more since I enclosed it in my 
message. This is a fragment from my tenure project that I did at the college 
quite a few years ago. It was part of an enormous multi-faceted project that 
involved not only the manuscript, but an entire book of poetry that was 
published, and the traveling exhibition of art works that went to numerous 
galleries and museums over a three year period.

I am taking it apart, to create short moments of time that can stand alone. 
The entire manuscript was published at that time, by the college. But I have 
wanted to zero in on it and tear it apart - deconstruction is a recurring 
passion I have.
Lynda

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jacqueline Williams" <jackieleepoet at cox.net>
To: "'Writer's Division Mailing List'" <stylist at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Tuesday, July 17, 2012 2:28 PM
Subject: Re: [stylist] Sharing Memoir and question

> Lynda,
> I will only deal with your first question. I had to put your memoir part
> into a Word document to get the word count. It is 1,113 Words, and what I
> did was to select all, then press Alt T, arrow down to word count and 
> press
> Enter. It will give you lines also.
> I tried to do this in Outlook and it did not have the menus where I could
> find this.
> I like your writing, and will leave the critiquing to the experts in 
> memoir.
> Jackie
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
> Behalf Of Lynda Lambert
> Sent: Tuesday, July 17, 2012 9:18 AM
> To: Writer's Division Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [stylist] Sharing Memoir and question
>
> OK, I will ask this question - I know I should KNOW this, but, how do I 
> find
> the "word count" for my writing?
>
> I will copy and paste a short memoir I have worked on today. I am writing 
> a
> series of memoirs about a Great Grandmother's Memories - her reflections 
> on
> Art and Memory. This is the first of the "Silent Discourses." In this one,
> the storyteller speaks of a memory shared by the Great Grandmother. The
> recollections of the Great Grandmother on her childhood and her love of
> nature and secrets of the Earth.
> It should move from the storyteller, to the memories of the grandmother,
> back and forth, as in the way memories come to us - in layers, shifting, 
> and
> moving.
>
> In my work there is almost never a chronological time line - so don't 
> expect
> it. Life shifts and moves and comes and goes like the ebbing of the
> Caribbean waters as one stands on the beach. That is how I approach 
> writing.
>
>
> I very greatly would appreciate any feedback you can give me on this, any
> suggestions for improvement, or anything else you can offer to me on it. I
> consider every comment carefully.
>
> I really appreciate feedback. In fact, because of the great feedback I
> received from a group of writers on another site, my poem "Flotsom, 
> Jetsom,
> and the River" was selected in the NFB writing contest. The group had told
> me it was too vague - so I set to work to figure out what I needed to do 
> to
> make it stronger and then I submitted it to the contest. Without their 
> good
> critique this poem would have been too vague, I am sure, to be considered.
>
> Thanks, Lynda
>
> Here is the Memoir:
>
> ____________________
>
> Silent Discourse:  Reflections on Art and Memory
>
> By Lynda Lambert
>
>
>
>
>
> Silent Discourse #1
>
>
>
>
>
> Memories of  her summer days in Western Pennsylvania seemed to silently 
> move
> in the thoughts of the Great Grandmother today as she thought of the 
> little
> girl  who stood  alone, surrounded by  a yellow-green world.
>
>
>
> Great Grandmother's  memory  was taking her back to a distant summer day 
> in
> western Pennsylvania. She thought it must have been in the late 1940s
> because she was so very young at that time. The little girl  was sensitive
> to the natural world of trees, flowers, birds, grasses, and the brilliant
> blue sky.  She loved to be outdoors in all kinds of weather but summer 
> time
> was particularly pleasant because she did not have to wear shoes. She 
> could
> splash through the falling rain as it saturated her clothing and made her
> long auburn hair stick to her wet shoulders. She liked to stomp down with
> her bare feet, into   the puddles of cool squishy water in the yard. Her
> toes moved about on the wet ground, and it felt so good to her!
>
>
>
> On sunny days, she climbed into the back yard walnut  tree  quickly and
> liked to hide amid the foliage to survey the entire world of her deep 
> green
> grassy  yard. From there, she could watch her father working in his 
> gardens.
> There were two of them, separated by a path down the middle. When she 
> thinks
> about her father, in her mind's memory book, he is always laboring in his
> garden and bringing fresh vegetables to the house for their dinners. 
> Father
> brought other delights, too. There were rabbits and squirrels, wild game
> birds , and deer. All were brought by the Father for his family. There 
> were
> fresh fruits, too, from his trees. And, chickens from the chicken coop
> behind the gardens.Great Granmother's favorite gift that was gathered by 
> her
> Father was the assortment of fresh mushrooms he gathered in the woods. He
> knew exactly what each mushroom was, and exactly when each would be ready
> for picking. He was a woodsman who knew the ways of the woods and brought
> the bounty of the woods home to feed his family of four children. There 
> was
> always plenty to eat because of her Father's skills in hunting and
> gathering.
>
>
>
> If she was not high up in a tree, then she might be found in the gardens,
> making trails and roads through the dark rich soil. She liked to play 
> there
> in the dirt  with her dump trucks and brightly painted metal cars. She was 
> a
> little girl who did not play with baby dolls or have tea parties with her
> friends. She read about little girls who liked those things in the books 
> she
> read from the library. She enjoyed reading about the tea parties and the
> adventures of little girls in the books. But, that was not really her 
> world.
> It was the Earth that she connected with. The Earth in all it's many
> manifestations was her muse from the earliest days of her life.
>
>
>
> Great Grandmother  was in her late 60s and she still loved the Earth. She
> liked to feel it in her hands. She liked  to sit on it, and lay on it 
> under
> the trees in the shade. Her children would often lay there on the Earth 
> with
> her and they would laugh and tell stories, and dream together. It felt so
> good to lay there, fixed onto the surface of the earth like a magnet. She
> taught the children that the Earth was a Positive charge, and that people
> were a negative charge. It was necessary to join their bodies with the
> Earth's surface for them to be complete. Just like a set of magnets, the
> positive and the negative charge have to be together for the magnet to 
> work
> properly.
>
>
>
> Great Grandmother believed  it was probably mid-July when she reflected on
> it because the days were smoldering and languid because the sun was high 
> in
> the sky very early in the mornings that particular summer. The days were 
> so
> intense and hot that her skin felt sticky all the time. Her hair felt wet
> from sweating as she played in the trees that summer afternoon.  She was
> aware of the stifling heat of the early afternoon.  The child's  stature 
> was
> quite small as she  stood beneath the large leather-textured tree. She was
> small, but very strong. Neighbors often said she was athletic and wild.
>
>
>
> She  had glanced up into its gnarled branches, with their downward 
> movement
> towards the earth. They reached out in every direction over her  head. 
> This
> hulking giant was her favorite Apple tree - a protective, sheltering
> hide-away.  This ancient Apple tree stood just behind Mr. Corbin's gray
> concrete block garage.  As Great Grandmother  recalled, it was the only 
> tree
> that stood in her  neighbor's yard.  She could   not say that there were 
> no
> other trees, but it is this giant one that was remembered.   It must have
> been very old and looking back on the scene through the lens of memory. It
> seemed to her  to stand as a sentinel to separate the garage from the rows
> of garden plants. But,Great Grandmother
>
> knew for sure that even as this tree separated and divided Mr. Corbin's 
> back
> yard it was also the connection between Heaven and Earth.  It was the 
> space
> between Here and  There; between the Present moment and the Future.  The
> tree stands in her childhood memory as a vertical division in a horizontal
> verdant landscape - an axis mundi.
>
>
>
>
>
> The Great Grandmother  knew then just as sure as she  knows  now about
> secret things.
>
> She  has  always known about hidden things and what they mean. She knew
> about the life inside of rocks, and the tears that were there. She knows
> about the silent and quiet things that most people never see. Some people
> call Great Grandmother a "seer." But she really cannot see because she is
> now blind. Great Grandmother talked  about seeing wit her inner eyes. She
> calls this her "intuition." She says she sees the very special places 
> that
> people with good eyesight have never seen.
>
>
>
> The secret places are all tucked away in her memories. One by one, over 
> the
> years, she will share them with her children and her grand children and 
> even
> now, today, she shares this memory with her Great Grand-daughter. It is 
> the
> Great Grandmother who is the Storyteller. Just like the Griot in an 
> African
> village, Great Grandmother is the One who preserves the memories for the
> family and tells the stories that will give them the information they will
> need on their journey in life. She holds the secrets in her memory until 
> the
> time is right.
>
> Lynda Lambert
> 104 River Road
> Ellwood City, PA 16117
>
> 724 758 4979
>
> My Blog:  http://www.walkingbyinnervision.blogspot.com
> My Website:  http://lyndalambert.com
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Writers Division web site
> http://www.writers-division.net/
> stylist mailing list
> stylist at nfbnet.org
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/stylist_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
> stylist:
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/stylist_nfbnet.org/jackieleepoet%40cox.net
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Writers Division web site
> http://www.writers-division.net/
> stylist mailing list
> stylist at nfbnet.org
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/stylist_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for 
> stylist:
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/stylist_nfbnet.org/llambert%40zoominternet.net
>
> 