Don't Know Why, But In The Midst of All This Snow, Marash Girl Is Remembering Summer Saturdays In Sturbridge Before The Tornado

Years ago, several years before the 2011 summer tornado hit Massachusetts, Marash Girl and her family would not only summer in the old cabin on top of Wilbraham Mountain, but would often spend time there at the end of a work week, leaving late on a Friday afternoon from the eastern side of the Bay State to arrive in Wilbraham about an hour and a half later, traffic allowing. On such weekends, Marash Girl would often drive on Saturday afternoons down from the top of Wilbraham Mountain, east to Sturbridge, Massachusetts, to join the artists, writers, musicians, and poets of the area, all meeting at a restaurant's coffee shop, if only for a cup of coffee and some words of encouragement. (Marash Girl was honored to be welcomed into the group . . .) But as Marash Girl's father would have said at this juncture, "Those days are gone . . . forever!" N.B. Should any of you reading this blog be one of the artists, writers, musicians, or poets that used to meet in Sturbridge in those days, please comment below! Or email!

A Note From Noted Author David Kherdian . . .

Below missive sent to Marash Girl and others From: David Kherdian Subject: A note to my friends Date: August 28, 2021 at 2:15:21 PM EDT A note to my friends before reading... I would like to share with you my thoughts on an issue that has been bothering me for these past few weeks regarding the reluctance of the Journal Times of Racine, Wisconsin to run an article about my new book on Racine—A PLACE IN TIME. Please let me or the Journal Times hear from you with your thoughts. DEAR WORLD, DEAR JOURNAL TIMES, DEAR ME To measure this time I am in now I must go back to the time when I was a lone boy of immigrant parents who had survived the genocide, and in particular the memory of my mother who had lost everyone, a survivor who would hold helplessly to the ashes left behind. I was a difficult child, unruly, spoiled, searching, vibrant with energy—as were so many of the Armenian lads—who could not be contained by the imposed rules of that society, and often arrogant and disdainful toward those in command, that caused many of the boys (but never the obedient Armenian girls) to be flunked in grade school—in my case three times, once even in summer school, which had a profoundly harmful effect on the rest of my life, until at age 60, that resulted in my wife compelling me to write a biography of that period. Which I did, with my novella Asking that River (later collected in my memoir Root River Return) and in the process I at last crossed that river to stand on firm ground, earned by my forgiveness of those who had tormented me with their hatred, which I now understood for what it was—small minds reverting to racism, when their own self worth was brought into question by those who were innocently clamoring for a freedom they could sense but were feeling deprived of. The classroom now is this tormented world that seeks the only possible cure, which is love, but where can that love come from if it is not understood, just now terribly absent this is in so their many of their lives, who must helplessly seek some balance they cannot find, when it turns its face away to the antipode of hate, accompanied by blame, in seeking revenge in any form that can be found. This is my prelude to the theme of oppression that once again has come down on my head, but what a long arc it has been from childhood to this—flunked, once, dismissed, then admired, and now, once again unwanted because out of sync with the prevailing power possessors who are determined to run this country into the ground. It has come to this, My new book, A Place In Time: A 20th Century Memoir, that The Journal Times, my hometown newspaper has refused to review or even mention in its newspaper, with the great irony that this very paper once proudly proclaimed that I had put Racine on the map. Over the years I have published over twenty books on my youth in Racine: poetry, verse, memoirs, novels, short stories, receiving altogether countless awards, with my work translated into seventeen languages. My many awards and honors from Wisconsin include the prized Banta Award, and from my hometown The Emily Lee Award for lifetime achievement. America has over time become more inclusive and accepting of its changing make-up; I was in my thirties when I first began to think of myself, at last, as an American, and although I had worked hard to honor and understand my racial heritage, and for a time I was overtly proud of my ancestry, perhaps in part at least from a sense of isolation. But that began to change when I spent time with Allen Ginsberg, who seemed free of of his Jewish roots, working instead for the common good of humanity. This was in the 60s, when I was coming into my own, as was the case for so many who alive to their own individualities, to judge their previous devotions or identifications and causes, to seek a new freedom and not just for themselves, which began for me when I started writing poetry, while coming into my own as an artist, not wishing to be typed or caught up in any cause, even freedom for all, for how could I know that if I hadn't freed myself from my own humiliating past. Thus I became a loner, recognizing that I had always been that, first from my conditioning, that I had to overcome. But I realized that I could not come to this without first honoring my roots, by measuring and evaluating the contents of my own being, what I was born with, what I came out of, and what contained me, that is how my soul's body was holding its spirit in place. I began by studying and even translating some Armenian poets, with a growing interest in other Eastern poets, like Cavafy and Hikmet, slowly to realize in time that I was becoming a mystic poet, a label first put on me that I never would have assumed, as being too lofty, but it was a fact that my favorite poets then as now were Whitman, Blake, Wordsworth, Keats and Yeats, but I read everyone, and in time I came to study the ideas of G. I. Gurdjieff, who was the first master to bring Eastern spirituality to the West. Here, too I was almost instantly out of place, while writing an important book on my understanding of and experiences in a Fourth Way school, that my wife and I were in for nine years, being founded on Gurdjieff's system, and all the while I was writing poetry, published by the press my wife and I had founded there within our school. I feel it is incumbent on me to analyze why my hometown paper has rejected my book, and I think the clues are most likely to be found in my book. First of all, I wanted to honor Racine for the democratic principles that held it in place, by inviting workers from all parts of the world in its various ethnic alignments: Jews, Italians, Armenians, Greeks, Czechs, and also from central Europe, beginning with the Danes, and followed by the Irish, the Welsh, and still others. The native black population, although not treated equals where absorbed into the body politic and belonged, if not properly appreciated as equally, as they certainly were for me, and treated thusly, and not only because of my classmate, friend and neighbor, Ulysses Doss, but also Mr. Miller, who was the radio repairman in our neighborhood, who impressed me by his dignity and upright character. Also, just outside our neighborhood, I came to know an elderly, if not old, black couple, who befriended the children around them, sometimes feeding and nurturing them in their special way, who had a dignity and sweetness of character that I also found in other blacks, which I happily noted in my book. One of the very first poems I wrote was a reverential tribute to this couple. This poem and my regard for the blacks I encountered in our town as a boy, and then as adult, are described in this book. And I believe that both this and my regard for the democratic principles that existed there then has put me out of favor with the rascists that now run that newspaper, and I'm sure they represent other leaders in Racine, like the museum, and various clubs, yet I have never ceased to honor my hometown's importance and place in my life, all the years I lived there as a boy and young man. There is one other thing in my book that I feel must also mark it as something to avoid if not condemned by racists and fascists and bigots, and that is the books dedication, that subtly points out that the blacks from the south, that were brought into its labor force rather late, and soon abandoned, and then vilified after the factories shut down and moved away, leaving them stranded in a hostile world, that would not accommodate them, but that they had to accommodate themselves into its racist strictures. Here is my dedication in full, in which this is sadly denoted, along with all that I found praiseworthy and worthy of honoring. DEDICATION For Gilbert Knapp who found and then founded it For the Natives who first knew, loved and lived for it For William Horlick who helped to grow it For Jens Jensen who designed the lasting parts of it For Mr. Vance who brought along the children within it For the businessmen and town fathers who once cherished it For the factories that consumed and then abandoned it For the black workers, that last source of willing labor who were sacrificed and then abandoned for the good of it when there was no longer any good to be had in it And for those who never lost their love for it but who are now mostly not living there inside it. So why should I not be shameless for showing both the glory and the underside of Racine, when anything else would favor sentimentality, a falseness that would spoil the book and my memory of life there, which I believe most anyone of intelligence and sensitivity must feel for their homeplace. To be worthy of our humanity we must see ourselves as we are, flawed and aspiring, and the city the same, a work in progress or regress, which is how I have gone through my life here, on this sacred soil. Because of the Journal Times unique censorship of me, hundreds if not thousands of people in Racine, not to mention those who are far gone, will likely never know of my book, with its benefits I had had in mind for them. Sincerely, David

Remembering Charlie Merrick and Norman Krim - - They Remembered It All!!!

Charlie Merrick (several generations older than Marash Girl) and Norm Krim (a generation younger than Charlie Merrick) . . . though neither knew the other, the Norm who lived in the East and one who lived in the West (the East and West of Massachusetts), both good friends of Marash Girl, both wih incredible memories . . . On different occasions (as the two never met), Marash Girl asked them the secret to their incredible memories . . . and they both had the same answer. "I write it down . . . ," Charlie in his yearly bound memorandum, and Norm in his little black book from the Harvard Coop. Oh, and let Marash Girl not to forget to add that they read their writings over on a regular basis, just to insure that they would remember those facts and incidents correctly!!! How Marash Girl misses Charlie Merrick and Norman Krim!!!

On Writing A Shakespearean Sonnet

Having tried her best to craft a sonnet à la Shakespeare (in response to her English teacher's writing assignment), Marash Girl was excited to learn what the teacher had thought of her efforts. How disappointed she was (Marash Girl . . . and probably the teacher, as well) when Marash Girl's sonnet was returned, and Marash Girl saw no comments, but rather the sixth letter of the alphabet, capitalized in red ink, at the top of her paper. Vahan Topalian's response? "Don't worry about it! She would have given Shakespeare an F!!!"

Free Writing, Free Thinking!

Have you ever just let your mind wander?  It's amazing what you might come up with . . . a long buried memory, a beautiful poem, a new way to make paklava . . . you never know!

THE WEIGHT OF INK

Rachel Kadish reads from her recent novel, THE WEIGHT OF INK, at the Woman's Club of Newton Highlands. Photo by Marash Girl

Author Rachel Kadish spoke to the Woman's Club of Newton Highlands this week about her experience writing THE WEIGHT OF INK, a novel set in 17th Century London (based on maps made by Queen Elizabeth's cartographer) and Amsterdam, where the Jewish people sought refuge (although the author admits that she herself never made it to Amsterdam -- only to the Houghton Library in Harvard Square!)  The question for the Jewish people was, according to Kadish, "Though we have found safety, are we really safe?"  The novel centers around a 17th Century woman, poor and Jewish, who has taken seriously Verse 5 from Psalm 137

ה  אִם-אֶשְׁכָּחֵךְ יְרוּשָׁלִָם--    תִּשְׁכַּח יְמִינִי."

If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning."

and the central theme, according to the author?  "Writing can be a life or death act!"

When asked about her approach to writing, Kadish says that, as she gets ideas, she places post-it notes on her wall, reorganizing as she goes, but she does NOT recommend that others necessarily do so!

Set in the present,  and in the 1660's,  the main character in THE WEIGHT OF INK is a woman who has been allowed to be the scribe for a Jewish Rabbi.  A fascinating look at history, the place of women in history, the courage to write, the secrets that our houses hold, and the history of the Jewish people.

The Need to Focus, the Need for Distraction (But not too much)

The need to focus with no distractions was discussed on the radio several evenings ago, as Marash Girl was trying to be distracted from the tedious task of packaging books.  For tedious rote tasks, some amount of focus is needed, but a certain amount of distraction will make it possible to slog through.

On the other hand, there is no way Marash Girl could write her blog with any amount of distraction.  The room needs to be silent, and the day early (or very late) to prevent any interruption to the flow of the words, the ideas, the memories.

Don't wait! Record those stories!

Marash Girl's father Peter had always wanted her to write his stories, but did she?  Not until it was too late!  Don't do as she did. Do as she says and start recording your family history -- using your pencil, your pen, your typewriter, your phone recording device, your computer -- whatever it takes -- while you still have time!

Six words?

Yesterday, while Marash Girl was playing catchup with her book orders, she tuned in to National Public Radio where they were discussing Not Quite What I Was Planning, a collection of six-word memoirs by famous and not-so-famous writers, artists and musicians. 

Marash Girl thought about that . . . six words . . . . hmmm . . . . a fun game . . . it would certainly save her readers time, but for Marash Girl?  It would break her heart.  Six words may get to the heart of the matter, but the joy of the matter is the human being to which the heart gives life.