Here on the high desert prairie, the grasses are a flat dry tan, and we won’t see green again all winter. But as the ground lies fallow, it’s as if the sky stands up even taller and says watch this! Each sunrise is a pink and yellow watercolor wash that starts as safety-vest orange with a tawdry hot pink lace horizon and slowly fades pale in full light. The snow is late this year, but the wind has stripped the leaves from the big elm. They rustle deep on the ground, except for those that land in the horse pen, soon to be vacuumed up by those who like a crunchy fall treat.
This essay sounds like a letter home, doesn’t it? A bit of nostalgia got stuck in my eye as I read a book this week called The Correspondent by Virginia Evans. It’s an epistolary novel, meaning written in the style of letters instead of chapters. It’s a book that tells a big story quietly, with unexpected twists and turns. The main character is a cantankerous woman of a certain age who enjoys the anachronistic habit of writing letters. For over 40 years, she’s written to her best friend, to someone on an online help desk, to a college professor, and to authors whose books intrigue her. Sometimes people write to me after reading one of my books. I treasure those letters as tiny miracles for the effort and thoughtfulness they carry.
My friend Sarah, who is also a letter writer, recommended The Correspondent to me. I re-read the cards she has sent me and keep them. Before finishing the book, I recommended it to my girlhood friend, another Sarah, a retired librarian. She also writes letters, many with newspaper clippings. Doesn’t that take you back? I save her cards, too.
This time of year, the night drops early, and the air seems to hold a dry ache. Jolene sits out on her stump and stares at the night sky, improvising Viking scat songs and watching for coyotes. The weather of her people will be here soon, but she has never seen snow. There will be a party of course, with barking and zooming.
Meanwhile, Mister worries because the pads on his feet are pink and delicate. Everyone knows those are indoor paws, and a sign of aristocracy. Dogs of his class winter with other snowbirddogs. My people, northern farmers, are prone to snowbird-ism, too. But only after they retire. And that’s the thing; we don’t retire. Instead, we prepare.
The horses stand out of the wind, feeling the morning sun, as if it promotes hair growth, when it’s really the decreasing daylight hours doing it. As if standing close will keep them safe from danger. It’s the stack of winter hay that makes me feel safe. The tank heaters are in, and trickle charger is ready for the ATV. I still need to pick up a load of pea gravel for the areas that will freeze into impromptu ice rinks. I am too old for butt skating, but still young enough to shovel around 1600 pounds of stones out of my truck bed. Why there are no horsewoman superheroes, I will never know.
Then I remember my mother’s handwriting. Soon I will drag out the recipe box for Thanksgiving and see it on faded index cards again. I don’t make her recipes; her cooking was no prize. She never read a book, but sometimes after supper she would painstakingly write out a letter for a female family member. I have no idea what she said. I never received one, but I keep her handwriting. Long-distance calls weren’t in our budget, and even the time to write was precious. The letters had to be a lifeline to other women.
When I left home, I took up letter writing out of loneliness, I thought. The letters were pages long, telling half-true stories embellished by flexing my vocabulary. Most of the main characters were animals; that hasn’t changed. Then, I created a decoupage envelope using magazine photos that told a similar story. I was doing the cut-and-paste thing before PCs existed. What I know now is that I was a lonely baby memoirist.
During therapy in my 20s, my therapist encouraged me to write letters I would never mail. Rant letters to purge the emotional pain from the constant incoming judgment about my life choices. Write out those feelings, they said. Say everything you want to say, but don’t send the letter! Maybe the cheapest and most effective therapy was also the first kind.
Memoirs must have grown from diaries and letters. Consider it the ground-floor genre that supports other genres. Stories begin with what we know. The ingredients of romance, or science fiction, or fantasy come from the fertile soil of our lives. Some of us still loiter in memoir because we marvel that fiction will never be weirder than real life. We cannot look away.
After moving to the farm, my first $300 phone bill sent me back to writing long letters to friends, but I finally had a computer. Those emails didn’t come in hand-crafted envelopes, but I could attach photos. And the post office didn’t slow the mail down. My friends never wrote back in the quantity I wrote to them, and that was fine. I was writing to keep myself company during an isolated time. Not as crazy as talking to myself out loud, though I did that, too.
The Correspondent held email in disdain, the ugly stepchild of letter writing. It’s okay to be fussy. Email lacks the smell of paper and ink, the feel of holding of lives between the covers. The struggle of reading cursive chicken scratch. But email is still the art of writing, and some days, the dogs steal all the pens.
Reading this latest book, I felt sorry I wasn’t the correspondent that I used to be. Then I remembered how this blog started. In the beginning, all I wanted to do was write a little note home. My parents had passed on, so I wrote from home. Years later, I had grown a platform where I might help horses, so my writing turned to that. Writing gave me the opportunity to travel the world doing the work I loved. Years later, I’m back to writing letters from my farm. Life is a circle.
Was it arrogance to write Stable Relation, this story that had been stuck in my throat for so long? Why would a nobody like me write a memoir about my tiny life? My first readers answered me. They said I was telling their stories. What if memoir is a way to let us know we are more alike than different? That our small lives have meaning. That our voices matter.
Do you owe a note to a loved one? Is it too soon to start the Christmas letter? Or maybe you have a story you want to leave your family. Even a book fighting its way out to the world. I’ve been lucky to help a few memoirs from others enter this life. Writing is a time-honored chore when there is no free time. An art whose value impacts the author in inexplicable ways.
Each of the six books that followed the first one changed me again. What hasn’t changed is knowing there are diehard readers who still expect a letter from me every Friday morning. Thank you for keeping me grounded. I won’t disappoint, even if first recipient is me. A writing habit is a self-reward. A way of understanding thoughts and finding meaning in everyday life. I address it to friends I may never meet.
Hello. We’re all fine here on the farm. How are you?
I’ll be giving a writing class in January called How to Write a Memoir if You’re Nobody, open to anybody. Details coming soon.
…
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I love your writing Anna and agree completely that we write to understand and honor our own experiences. We met very briefly over email when I was editor of the Northwest Horse Source and I appreciate the way you show up for your readers, week after week. Currently horseless, your column reminds me I am always a horsewoman. I look forward to hearing more about your memoir course—one of my very favorite genres. Have you ever read A Three Dog Life? I imagine you would appreciate it.
Great book, Catherine. And I remember you. Always a horsewoman.
Dear Anna,
Your Jolene stories are inspiring my daughter to try a new way of dog training, but this week’s column is inspiring me. I’ve been living a very difficult life of caregiving (without horses, no less), and have joked with friends that no one would believe it if I wrote about it. But you said, “What if memoir is a way to let us know we are more alike than different? That our small lives have meaning. That our voices matter.”
And I’m going to be thinking about those lines for days. Maybe my story would actually help someone. I really appreciate you.
Karen
Karen, I have absolutely no doubt that your story would help others, and probably you, as well. Please start!
and thanks for telling me about your daughter. I was hoping (with no way of knowing) that they would land that way.
I loved this one! I love your writing style and descriptive qualities. I can envision it so well. Thanks for sharing your writing gifts!!
Thanks for reading, Loretta. Writers need readers!
I feel “seen” and less alone in the world when I read your epistles. Thank you for sharing your life with dogs and equines and the passing seasons. Beautifully expressed. And, oh, I happened to be in the middle of reading The Correspondent, too!
Thanks, Shirley. That is my hope. And it’s nice to be reading together.
Anna what a perfect post. I’ve joined a letter project an am hoping to write aletter a week. I’ve started writing again, tentatively.a look forward to details of your memoir course.
We have had a day of totally torrential rain, the empty feed bowl is at least 4″ deep. My fields are under water. thats winter sorted then. More rain tomorrow.
The correspondent sounds good- altho i am in a “lets try not to buy any more books” month- at least until i have read the ones i have (probably never will )
great post – got my mind spinning in all differnt directions
thanks as always
Oh goody, Chris. I always want you to write more.
You are my horsewoman superhero, even if I do not have a horse. I loved your writing after the first time I stumbled onto your blog, and you had me at “what to do when your horse falls into a hole; get in there with him, you are part of the reason he’s there”. I used that analogy so much in my teaching students to be clinical social workers after that, and shared your story with them. It helped me to become a better teacher, and my students had amazing success when they had permission to try something they did not know how to do and were afraid of messing up. We would go into the hole together, and when we came out, we were both better for our experience. And as for horses, during those last 5 years of Dad’s and Rio’s lives when I was going home often to help out, Rio’s life improved, too, because I learned things from you that enabled me to know what to do, or how to find out what to do, and especially–what NOT to do. And now, I love learning from Jolene. Getting older, and learning as we go, is a fabulous gift for not having died yet. It is a great way to face the future, so thank you for all you do for horses, dogs, and women everywhere. “Bring on the matriarchy”; “Power to the women, no delay”. Every day I am amazed at all the incredible women who are leading us out of holes.
Oh my heart… you might not know this but I can’t say the word ‘teacher’ without seizing. So much respect for anyone who teaches anyone. Teachers saved my life, you are a superhero!! I love that you use that example, it’s a favorite of mine. Such a common sense approach, even if unflattering. Thank you so much for the kind words. I really appreciate you telling me. It comes as a surprise but a very happy one. And I agree. It will be women who lead us out. We can hardly do worse.
It was just fitting to acknowledge what you contribute to all of us, and I have enjoyed the Jolene series so much! Hope winter is kind to you all.
Dear horsewoman hero, We are doing well here, having just gotten the time to read another Anna memorist blog on a really spectacular day of blue bird skies and a breeze with the smell of leafy color in the air. The best season of the year to me, before winter, however mild here, begins. Our autumn may be more extended than yours. I took advantage of this perfect day for cleaning equine sheaths. Lucky me. Really. To be able to do this is quite an honor given (but not by all today), so I am grateful. To think that I wasted a summer full of warm days procrastinating that task; I wonder why now that it’s done. I also procrastinate letter writing, but warm to you reminding us of how we are all more alike than different. And sharing that, even with those we know, especially family includiing chosen family, is important. You make it easier to anticipate the only time of year when I still write letters. This comment will have to do today. Your writing would not be so good if you enjoyed writing it any less, even if not easily made so easily read. And reading it is truly enjoyed. Thanks, Anna.
Dear Minna. Thanks for the newsy note. Sounds like you had a fine day for sheath cleaning.
Hi to the long ears and here’s to a kind winter…
Sincerely….
P.S. I need to give credit to you for always keeping in mind how lucky I am to live and breathe with long ears, and even the short ear who let me clean him. More gratitude.
Ah sheath cleaning day!
I was always so amazed that when I finally forced myself to do it – my Chico boy really enjoyed it!!
How about that?
Maggie
The writing class sounds interesting. I journal. I send cards. I love your Friday musings. Thank you for brightening my day
Thanks, Mary. I bet you have stories to tell.
and I’ve been one of the lucky few who benefited from your help…beautiful reflections Anna.
Thank you, Patti Brehler, author of Facing Sunset. Wonderful book!
thanks! And looking forward to your memoir class…
I have to read your book, as Anna just recommended. I love the title. Great reviews, of course. I just ordered from bookshop.
my book Mina? Thanks! hope you enjoy…
Dear Anna,
Thank you for your wonderful habit of writing a letter on Friday. I always read them, love hearing your thoughts , love hearing about all of your animals. I am in the middle of reading The Correspondent. Such an interesting story presented in an unconventional way. I own and have read most of your books, and have loved them all especially Stable Relations! You have inspired me so often on my own horse journey.
Thank you and please keep writing. I will keep reading.
Warmly,
Diane
It’s a deal. Thank you, Diane, for the kind words. So glad to join you on Fridays.
I think I feel your heart in this post a little extra.
Wishing you all the best.
Thanks, Deb. I get as mushy about writing and connecting that way as I do animals. You are right. Best wishes to you and yours, as well.
Well Anna, it appears I’ve run out of excuses to write, as a bare two weeks ago I surrendered and took out a lease on a unit for six months!
I simply couldn’t face another summer and snakes and heat.
Been too busy to get cabin fever – yet!
And fortunately there’s a good piece of bush land at the end of my street.
Now it’s the beginning of a new chapter 🤔
Annie… that is news. I don’t know how many years you have been mobile, but you had me at snakes. I’m working at not having to do everything the hard way, as is my habit. But I would never see you as surrendering. A little convenience isn’t a crime. Once a gypsy, always a gypsy. I can’t imagine it is changing the essential YOU. Congrats on the big shift. Can’t wait to see what you gain from the change! Take care, my friend.
Thank you for this Anna. Your writing of “ordinary days” makes them sound anything but, even glorious at times! Wishing you a tasty Thanksgiving and a restorative winter warmed by all your critters. C.
Thanks, Cindy. Ordinary should be wonderful!
I forget to keep up with your blogposts because they don’t show up in my Blogger Reading List. Then I see your IG posts and am finally niggled into searching out your blog. A fine catch-up spree then starts, made all the more fun for me because of Jolene and her adventures. I’ll save more catching up for tomorrow, as I took my 10:00 meds and am fading fast. How am I? I had a type of stroke, a subarachnoid hemorrhage, on Jan. 27 and was at OHSU until Feb. 6. Slowly but surely coming back, although I haven’t gotten down to the barn to say hi to my horses yet. Soon, I hope. In the meantime, my Decker girl has been the best little nursemaid.
Michelle! Sorry to hear of your stoke. Glad to hear you are still with us in the land of the living. Slow and steady is the best comeback. Where would we be without our dogs?
I can’t even imagine life without a companion dog! Don’t want to; won’t even consider it. Thankfully my husband and son have been taking care of all the outdoor animals (horses, sheep, chickens), maybe not like I would, but they are all surviving and I am thankful for that and much more. I don’t have any deficits, just dealing with ‘stroke head’ for awhile yet (the brain linings don’t appreciate the presence of ‘free’ blood, and my sciatica got REALLY annoyed after I laid around in a hospital for a week.) Still enjoying catching up on all your posts since November!
Thanks Michelle. Having to stay still is a whole other pain in the back. Arf. I know what you mean.