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Letter from Joyce Archives
Look for the February 2004 release of The Usual Rules in paperback!
October 10, 2008
Dear Friends,
I write to you now in strange and uncertain times. Maybe when we were young we never really knew where we were headed in life (certainly most of the pictures I had back then about where I’d be at this age bear no resemblance to where I find myself). But some of us thought we knew -- who we’d be married to, where we’d be living, where we worked, how much we had in our 401K plan. (If we had one.) Speaking only for myself, I’ll just say I was wrong on nearly every front.
Lately, every day’s news brings another round of shock, concerning bank failures, big companies going under, federal bailouts, mounting deficits. For myself -- as a person without investments -- the distress is less immediate. But for all of us, the world appears to be changing. Whether or not we have a stock portfolio, or even a home, life as we knew it is changing.
It’s understandable that many of us would be feeling fear and dismay. In recent months, I’ve heard from too many readers and friends who have lost jobs and homes, people who worked hard all their lives and suddenly find themselves, in their forties or fifties, wiped out. Your letters, and your courage in facing changing times, have moved me greatly, and reminded me -- if I ever forget -- to take nothing for granted.
I won’t pretend to know what it feels like to be bankrupted by a medical crisis, with no health coverage, or insufficient coverage, or to lose one’s home to foreclosure, or have to tell one’s children that they can’t go to college because the money’s not there. I don’t possess wealth, or much in the way of security, but I’m still among the lucky ones. It could be that publishers will stop buying my books, and magazines will cease to run my articles. But maybe because I haven’t had a regular kind of life for a long time now (no husband, no job, and lately I’ve been living out of a suitcase more often than not), I’ve gotten accustomed to doing without certain kinds of comforts, and finding others to take their place. In my case, my wealth has taken the form of friends, experiences, adventures -- many of which I might never have encountered if I’d had more material comforts to insulate me.
My life in Guatemala is a good example. I never would have settled in that little village on the shores of Lake Atitlan, probably, if I hadn’t been searching for the cheapest place I could find, to go and live while I finished a book. And in the end, what that necessity presented was one of the best and richest experiences of my life.
Few people can do what I did -- up and move to a Mayan village when times get tight. But I thought now -- as many of us find ourselves contemplating lean days ahead -- might be a good time to share with you a chapter from my new memoir-in-progress, about the moment in my life, seven years back, in which I weathered my own big wipeout -- and the unlikely lessons revealed to me in the process.
I want to add, I’m doing something here I’ve never done before, which is to share with subscribers to my Joyce Maynard Website Updates & Writing Workshop Mailing List a work very much still in progress. The book this comes from, that I started writing back in August at the MacDowell Colony and am continuing to work on at the Yaddo Artists’ Retreat, is not even finished yet. It’s a story that attempts to answer the question (to borrow a line from Mary Oliver): What to do with my one wild and precious life? It may be that the book is still in progress because I’m still searching for the resolution to that question, though I think I’m getting closer.
I keep changing my mind about the title for this book (not so surprising, when you consider I’m still working on it). For now, I’m calling it Otra Planeta, which means “other planet” in Spanish.
The chapter I’m sharing with my subscribers occurs early on in the story. It’s the fall of 2001. I’ve just come from New York City, where I found myself in midtown on September 11. My last child has left home, and I’m grieving that pretty hard, feeling alone. I’m forty eight years old -- and wondering what to do with the rest of my life.
When you meet up with me here (this is about fifty pages into the story) I’ve made my way to a little village called San Marcos La Laguna, where I’ve rented a little house with the idea of writing a novel. I call this chapter “Red Shoes.” It’s longer than the stories and essays I generally share with you, by the way, but to those of you willing to take the time with this one I’ll add, I’d love to hear what you have to say about it.
If you're not a subsriber to Joyce's mailing list, now's a good time to sign up. Just visit the Joyce Maynard Website Updates & Writing Workshop Mailing List Subscribe page, type in your email address, fill in the next page, and you're in. Should you like a copy of this first peek at Joyce's new book, just hit the reply button when you receive your Welcome to the List email, and we'll make sure you get one. — Myrna
And by the way, you can also find my story about my breasts and my mother on the MORE magazine website.
On other fronts: I’m hoping some of you who have been thinking about joining me at one of my writing workshops at Lake Atitlan will take the plunge and do it. I hope you’ll take a look at the new slide show with pictures from our July Workshop, with Ann Hood. Melissa -- my assistant on the workshops, who is always happy to answer your questions -- will be sending out a new flyer about the February and March groups. If you can’t come yourself, I’d be deeply grateful if you’d forward the flyer on to any friends who might be interested.
I’ll be at Yaddo, writing, for the next five weeks. Then home, at last, to California. Please know that home or on the road, I always love to hear from you.
With friendship,
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