Browsed by
Category: writing

‘Telling it Slant’

‘Telling it Slant’

Comments 0 Comment

For my birthday, my daughter Claire gave me a subscription to Storyworth. This is a program that encourages you to tell your life story by sending you an email prompt every week. Mine arrives on Monday mornings.

Sometimes I set the prompt aside to answer later, but usually I respond right away. This may not be the most orthodox way to tell one’s life story, but maybe it’s the best way. Rather than sitting down to a blank page and an awesome responsibility, this is “telling it slant,” in the words of Emily Dickinson and one of my favorite books about writing. “To tell the truth, yes, but to become more than a mere transcriber of life’s factual experiences,” say authors Brenda Miller and Suzanne Paola.

My interpretation of “telling it slant” here also implies a slight off-handedness. I’ve long since learned the persuasiveness of the little editor on my shoulder; to subvert it is one of the reasons I started this blog. Sometimes the best way to avoid it is to dash something off, to meet a deadline. You can refine the piece later, but first just put some words on the page.

So, at least for now, that’s how I’m telling my life story.

New Month, New Site

New Month, New Site

Comments 3 comments

At this point, it seems easy. I’m typing the words as I always do. But I’ve spent more than a few moments thinking about this transition, and will spend many more getting to know this new format.

What matters most is that the old posts are here, all 4,440 of them. You can find them through the archives drop-down menu or by category when you click a post title.

When I started this blog in 2010, I hoped that it would be a “slow, patient accumulation of words.” And it has been. But it’s become something more, at least for me. It’s a record of moments — funny, sad, poignant — shards of colored glass in a kaleidoscope I hold up to the world.

Farewell to Blogspot

Farewell to Blogspot

Comments 1 comment

On February 7, 2010, when I wrote the first Walker in the Suburbs post, I knew only that I wanted to share a few thoughts with the world. I had no idea if I could keep blogging until the end of the month. Now, almost 15 years later, it’s time to move A Walker in the Suburbs to a new home. Truth to tell, it outgrew Blogspot long ago, but until now I’ve lacked the time and will to switch sites. 

Starting tomorrow, October 1, 2024, you can find A Walker in the Suburbs here. The content won’t change, but the design is updated, and you’ll be able to subscribe and comment.

Meanwhile, as I say goodbye to this platform, I think of all that’s happened since it began, the writing I’ve done; the people who are gone and the ones who’ve just arrived; how our world has changed. 

How grateful I am to have this opportunity to connect with all of you, to share my love of walking and place. Thank you, as always, for reading. I hope you enjoy the new Walker in the Suburbs. 

A Day Without Rain

A Day Without Rain

Comments 0 Comment

Yesterday, for the first time in days, we woke up to clear skies. I took a long walk then squeegeed off the glass-topped table on the deck, making a dry spot for alfresco research and writing. By late afternoon I was restless again, ready for another stroll. 

Such are the choices that await us on a day without rain, choices we haven’t had for the last week or so. Not that I’m complaining, given what residents of Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas have been enduring. But a day without rain made me appreciate the sunny weather that is so often our lot. Plus, I can tolerate today’s dampness all the more after yesterday’s solar recharging. 

Today’s drippy cloudiness puts me in a reflective mood. This is the penultimate post I’ll write on this platform. On Tuesday, October 1, A Walker in the Suburbs moves to its new home. Stay tuned for more on this, including a link.

(Rainclouds in Canyonlands National Park)

Another Meta Post

Another Meta Post

Comments 0 Comment

Yesterday’s post was meta, as I think about the blog itself in preparation for launching it on a new platform soon. This has been long in the works, and on my mind for years. 

When it comes right down to it, though, I’m finding it difficult to make the leap. Which reminds me of a central truth: change is difficult. This is as true for small decisions — turning right rather than left at the corner when I stroll the neighborhood — as it is for larger ones, like moving a blog of 14 years. 

But change is also essential. More and more so as the years move on, I’ve noticed. 

And so, this Blogspot home will soon be history. I’ll keep you posted as I make the move — and I hope you’ll make it with me. Don’t worry. It will take a few days. These things always do. 

Monetization?

Monetization?

Comments 0 Comment

For class I’m re-reading the excellent novel Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. I’m highlighting many passages, in part for a presentation I’ll give in a few weeks, but also because I enjoy the observations and the prose.

Yesterday I was highlighting for an entirely different reason, and I was laughing as I did. The main character of the novel, Ifemelu, a young Nigerian-American, starts a blog where she muses on racial topics. In short order the blog becomes so popular and so profitable that she’s able to buy a home in Baltimore’s Roland Park. 

Granted, Americanah was published in 2013, much earlier in blogging’s history. I suppose its current earning power might be equivalent to that made by YouTube influencers. But still, I had to smile. I’ve never expected my blog to earn a penny — and it hasn’t! 

Testing, Testing…

Testing, Testing…

Comments 0 Comment

This is a test post. It’s a way for me to wade slowly into the waters of this new site.

I don’t imagine I’ll keep this post up for long. But it will let me understand if what I type in this block will appear on the page.

Change isn’t easy. Seems like I’m reminded of this every day. One of these days I’ll have to make the switch in earnest. I’m thinking it will be soon.

Real Heroes

Real Heroes

Comments 0 Comment

I’ve become a newspaper skimmer these days, checking headlines, reading a few stories and largely ignoring the rest. That I’m reading a hard-copy newspaper at all makes me a dinosaur, so the fact that I’m not always reading every article from start to finish is hardly jaw-dropping news. 

Sometimes, though, an article I only meant to skim draws me in to such an extent that I keep on reading even when I should be doing something else. 

Such was the case last night when, as I was heading to bed, a headline caught my eye: “The Canary.” Maybe because I like birds, maybe because the photograph of a mineshaft piqued my curiosity since I spent some time in one last month. 

The article tells the story of Chris Mark, a mine-safety engineer and the winner of a “Sammie” award for excellence in public service. From the sound of it, no individual has done more to keep miners safe than Mark has. Not that he’d tell you this himself. The man is humble to a fault.

No way can I do this riveting story justice; you’ll have to read it for yourself. But don’t do it leaning over the kitchen counter, as I did. Brew yourself a cup of tea, settle into a comfy chair, and peruse it properly. If for no other reason, read it to remind yourself, as author Michael Lewis says, “how many weird problems the United States government deals with at any one time.” And read it to remind yourself that real heroes still walk among us. 

(Graffiti in the Last Chance Mine, Creede, Colorado)

Alive on the Page

Alive on the Page

Comments 0 Comment

I’ve been reading Oliver Sacks’ Everything in its Place: First Loves and Last Tales, a posthumous collection of essays by a master of that form. That he was a master of so much else — neurology, weightlifting, chemistry — ripples out from every page.

Sacks loved to swim, to walk in botanical gardens, to study ferns in Central Park, and the book contains short chapters on these topics and many more, easy explorations in the personal essay form. They move from the particular to the general, are informal and discursive. 

Sacks is most well-known for his book Awakenings, which chronicles his treatment of patients with a rare sleeping sickness, people who had missed whole decades of life then woke up and found themselves once again in the land of the living. 

Awake is how I feel after reading the work of this scientist and writer, gone almost 10 years but alive to me now thanks to this final, exhilarating collection. 

(Sacks’ signature courtesy Wikipedia)

A Gathering of Writers

A Gathering of Writers

Comments 0 Comment

I spent Saturday with 200 other writers at the 2024 Washington Writers Conference. Some of us pitched ideas to agents. Others attended panels. A few of us made sure the day was running smoothly. But all of us were our own writerly selves, and that was, at least for me, why the day was such a tonic.

Writing is a solitary occupation, with much staring at blank pages and screens. It can also be accompanied by self-questioning and doubt: How can I say that better? Should I say that at all? Will anyone read this?

When writers come together they share those questions, which eases those doubts. 

In one of the day’s more memorable lines, James Grady, author of Six Days of the Condor, said, “Writing is a cross between a heroin addiction and the sex drive. It’s a hunger that drives us forward.”

I looked around, and every head in the room was nodding yes.

(Above: Paul Dickson speaks to the crowd after receiving the Washington Independent Review of Books Lifetime Achievement Award. Dickson has written more than 60 nonfiction books. He encouraged attendees to support each other.)