THE FOREST FOR THE TREES is about writing, publishing and what makes writers tick. This blog is dedicated to the self loathing that afflicts most writers. A community of like-minded malcontents gather here. I post less frequently now, but hopefully with as much vitriol. Please join in! Gluttons for punishment can scroll through the archives.
If I’ve learned one thing about writers, it’s this: we really are all alone. Thanks for reading. Love, Betsy
I’d always heard about it, but had never seen it. It’s a word that finds its way into poems: murmuration. And why not, it sounds amazing, all those delicious m’s and r’s. We took a boat up the Connecticut River to Essex, where at dusk, over 600,000 swallows emerged as tiny dots then as winged things in great masses forming shapes in the air, moving in unison. The show lasted for about 45 minutes, the birds moving to escape a peregrine falcon who was hunting. Everyone on the boat became five years old again as they spotted the great bird formation sweeping the sky. The only thing that could compare to the bird watching was the people watching. More on that tomorrow.
Thinking about my mother. Thinking about all the mixed messages I received. I think the one that really did me in was that I would be perfect if I was thin. Ha ha ha. I am perfect, mommy dearest. I miss my dead mother so much. I think about her all through the day. What she would like, what she would disdain. My mother was the original hater. She was also gullible and funny and generous and pro-active. She taught me to revere the dictionary and marveled at my similes. She bought me my first typewriter, a Smith-Corona two tone with a side cartridge. Through her eighties, every few weeks, she took a broom and dust pan into the basement to sweep up the dead mice. She said it kept her alive.
A writer who I work with has been struggling for a long time with a project. Over the years we’ve hypothesized about what is keeping her from her goal. Covid, a death in the family, toggling between points of view, no apparent structure, then the psychological possibilities: fear, depression, fear, depression. Anger, fear, depression. Her last book tanked, to be blunt, and there’s that, too. The specter of that failure looming like a dark cloud. In the end it doesn’t matter. You are a writer, you are a tank, fuck the fuck out of it. Delicate flowers need not apply.
A little slow getting out of the gate. I usually love the first day after labor day. I was always better at school than summer camp, better at work than vacation. I also live in New England and the changing colors of the trees is a gorgeous pageant. And then of course long sleeves and sweaters over shorts and and thongs. Somehow, and maybe it’s the terrible shape of the world, makes it harder to root for anything. I think as writers, obligated to no one and nothing, the responsibility, paradoxically, implores us to act. To read and write and publish, to communicate and find meaning.
Betsy Lerner 