The threads in my life unwind the minutes and hours of my days until the tangled strands weave together the place I call home.
LKC
As I travel along the byways of life, I collect objects to verify where I have been, establish relationships with the people who shared the experience, and stockpile ideas to stimulate my thinking in order to formulate who I am.As I move through life, I accumulate 'stuff' in my bag. Many events in my life tip the bag over and dump out the contents. One of these events is moving. I have changed residences several times in my life, but the most life-impacting was the move our family made to Minden in 1991. For months, the face of every person I met in The Christmas City was run through my AFIS (Automated Face Identification System), trying to connect with someone I knew back home in Newman Grove. It was exhausting, but my mind would not stop until it had refilled my bag of 'faces that go with places' and felt satisfied it had established a spot in the new place.
We belong to a mobile, disposable society where what was created in the past has little use except to fill corner cupboards or provide excuses for squabbles among family, governments, and cultures.LKC
If I win the award for being the oldest student in the class (I'm not so old that I actually used a buggy), I will add it to the growing pile I have accumulated since I began taking grad classes in earnest.
I haven't experienced anything before the fifties, but I love learning about our country by visiting the places that tell the stories. Museums, travel, multimedia, and books provide hours of enjoyment. The thatched-room lodge is a recreation at Sunwatch in Dayton, OH, where some of the earliest inhabitants of the Plains, found a place to call home.
When I learn in the school setting where I am the student, I am definitely in one of my favorite places. Recently, I earned a masters degree from UNK in curriculum and instruction. This past summer, I attended the NeWP in Lincoln, where I made a recommitment to writing (and going to great places to eat). 
Most of my classes have not been on campus, but online. My new little study corner in a "down-sized and cleaned-out" bedroom, is quickly becoming the place I gravitate to for peace and contentment (Although not today, as I am having #$//**# problems creating this blog. Even the wine, hot tea, Diet Coke, and huge dish of vanilla ice cream topped with fresh Colorado peaches that you see in the photo did not help!)
I love being able to see your study corner – now I will know just where to picture you whenever I read your posts online!
ReplyDeleteThe section in this post about your collecting bag really caught my attention…it reminded me of Ursula Le Guin, who wrote:
"If it is a human thing to do to put something you want, because it's useful, edible, or beautiful, into a bag, or a basket, or a bit of rolled bark or leaf, or a net woven of your own hair, or what have you, and then take it home with you, home being another, larger kind of pouch or bag, a container for people, and then later on you take it out and eat it or share it or store it up for winter in a solider container or put it in the medicine bundle or the shrine or the museum, the holy place, the area that contains what is sacred, and then the next day you probably do much the same again—if to do that is human, if that's what it takes, then I am a human being after all. Fully, freely, gladly, for the first time....
"[T]he proper, fitting shape of the novel might be that of a sack, a bag. A book holds words. Words hold things. They bear meanings. A novel is a medicine bundle, holding things in a particular, powerful relation to one another and to us."
—"The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction"
I am so amazed at how profound some people can be.
ReplyDeleteLucie,
ReplyDeleteI absolutely loved your blog from the quotes and pictures to your profound wisdom. We all ask the "why me?" at some point(s) in our journey. In fact, I am going to have peaches and ice cream before I go to bed tonight, in your honor. I, too, have an identity that is my relationship with my husband, but I have recently watched my mother navigate those lonely waters following the loss of a spouse. I am sorry for your loss but send you a "hurrah" for coming out on the other side with hope and a positive outlook. I can't wait to read more of your posts!
Dear Lucie,
ReplyDeleteI miss you! Living with you for those few weeks this summer allowed me to get to know you a little bit, but I appreciate having the chance to take this class with you so I can get to know you better. Thank you for sharing about your family, Mike, your daughters, school, and your place. I especially liked these lines in your blog, “One of the strongest places we consciously chose to inhabit is the relationship. No other force binds like the one created by emotional ties.” Often I think about the physical place, but it is true that relationships hold a place for us to occupy.
Your last lines left me smiling when you explain how the Diet Coke, ice cream, wine and so on did not help with your blog troubles. Good luck to you, my friend! ☺
Jennifer Troester
Hi Lucie,
ReplyDeleteI love your blog and look forward to reading more from you! Maybe we will get to know each other sometime through the NeWP. I was very touched by what you wrote about Mike and your daughters, and particularly struck by the following, "These people who enter into the sphere of our personal space become the contributing factors that influence who we become and where we find place." It's been a very long struggle to find place here in Nebraska, having chosen to follow my husband out here (we moved here due to his job). And yet I know now that people and relationships define place as much, if not more, than geography. What makes Nebraska such a special place are its people.
By the way, you may not be the oldest in the class!
Deb Derrick
Hi Lucie!
ReplyDeleteI tried to post last night and it wouldn't take my post!! Arggh! I'm in touch with your frustration. I really appreciated the fact that you included the line about how journaling helped you grieve over your husband. The journal workshop I'm conducting in November at the St. Benedict Center focuses on that aspect a bit. It is true that writing our stories helps us work through the pain of loss. (I have been there, too!) I can remember picking out our infant daughter's gravestone and wondering, "How many 24-year-old women have to do this?" There were times when I thought I would lose my mind, too, but the writing helped me heal. I'm so glad you shared this with us. I'm sorry the wine, the Diet Coke and the peaches and ice cream didn't help with the computer! :( ~Cathie
Thank you for posting your work corner. I'm always curious about where people like to write--where they sit, how they sit, do they listen to music, drink coffee, wine, soda, all three? Maybe we could all describe or post pictures of our writing quarters.
ReplyDeleteWriting is a wonderful healer--sometimes it takes a while to record the words (on paper or in binaries), but once they find a place, together, there's that added comfort. I find this to be the truth, anyway. And, I suspect like you, I cherish it.
Thank you so much for sharing. I'm looking forward to more.
I am jealous over your peaches! I love peaches but I only eat them in the summer when they are absolutely fresh and NOT from the grocery store. As I read blogs I am disappointed that we don't get to meet in person with everyone. There are too many stories and too many interesting people to only see each other via the internet. I am glad that you are a part of this class!
ReplyDeleteLucie:
ReplyDeleteI appreciated your insight that relationship can be a place, and that losing a spouse can be like losing a home. I think, in literature, this spouse/place connection goes way way back. Isn't it Ruth, in the Old Testament, who waxes lyrical about leaving the place of her raising and taking up the place of her husband? For centuries (and still today), such "relationship replacement" has been what women experienced in traditional marriage, whether during the time when marriage was a property arrangement or the more recent era when the same things happened "for love." Reading your blog, I'm thinking hard about how gendered experience get layered onto place experience, and I'm not sure I know how to think about this yet.
~Robert
Lucie, Lucie!
ReplyDeleteI learned so much about you from this blog. Good heavens! When I met you at the writing retreat last summer I thought you were one of Anne's cool friends. I had no idea you had recently lost your husband-- though I did know after one weekend of camping near you that you love to laugh!
Thanks for sharing so many wonderful pictures, too! I love your little study nook and the picture of your classroom!
Great I Am From poem, too! Full of precise imagery and memorable quotes. I can empathize with you in your thinking of school as a "good" place now.
Like Robert, I thought your inclusion of "relationship as place" was really thought-provoking.
Looking forward to sharing more writing with you soon!
Lucie,
ReplyDeleteYour blog makes me think we should all post our "writing" places. I'm tired of mine this late at night, but I think it would be neat to see them. Your testament to the power of words, the power of writing to help heal is affirming. After all as English teachers, we rely on words and want to teach our students to do the same, to value them as we do. Thanks for sharing this deeply personal writing. And, I think your blog looks great (same colors as mine!).