Time lines

There is no more stalwart timekeeper than a tree; the count of its rings reveals its age. The lighter part of the ring is formed in the growing season (wider in years of favorable sun, temperature, and precipitation), while the darker edge marks the dormant period in fall and winter.  These rings also hold the tree’s life story; scientists can identify times when the tree thrived and when it struggled, when it was shocked with episodes of fire, lightning, insects, or earthquake.

Humans, too, often have lines to show their age – around the eyes and mouth, in their hands. These lines don’t reveal what has weathered the person – whether it’s sun or smoking, laughter or tension – but as the years advance, wrinkle lines deepen and multiply. In humans, genetics and lifestyle vary the formation of these lines of experience, so it’s difficult to tell age by wrinkles alone. And human skin won’t fossilize to leave a record that can be examined. Instead, people leave their history with their descendants, and through their celebrated accomplishments, and through the things they make.

As my skin begins to show aging lines, I am beginning to think of what I may leave behind as a record of my existence. I have no direct descendants who will repeat my stories. I have no great accomplishments that will go down in any history. What I do have is what I write.

In The Thirteenth Tale, Diane Setterfield wrote –

People disappear when they die. Their voice, their laughter, the warmth of their breath. Their flesh. Eventually their bones. All living memory of them ceases. This is both dreadful and natural. Yet for some there is an exception to annihilation. For in the books they write they continue to exist. We can rediscover them. Their humor, their tone of voice, their moods. Through the written word they can anger you or make you happy. They can comfort you. They can perplex you. They can alter you. All this, even though they are dead. Like flies in amber, like corpses frozen in ice, that which according to the laws of nature should pass away is, by the miracle of ink on paper, preserved. It is a kind of magic. 

Some might find that morbid, but I find it tantalizingly inspiring.

Leaving written word behind to be discovered in the future is the conceit of a poignant art project taking shape in Norway. In 2014, the artist Katie Paterson planted 1000 trees on a cleared piece of land in the Nordmarka forest. The wood from the trees cleared from that part of the forest were used to build a “silent room” on the top floor of the Oslo library. The undulating, odd-shaped wooden walls of this small room are built in 100 layers reminiscent of rings of a tree, and each ring has a small climate-controlled enclosure somewhere along its length creating a random pattern of lighted box-fronts. Each of these 100 compartments is intended to hold one precious piece of writing.

The forest and silent room and slowly building collection of manuscripts constitute the interconnected elements of the Future Library. Every year since 2014, ongoing for 100 years, a different author is being asked to contribute a unique work, never-seen by anyone but the writer – any length, any genre, any language. In 2114, those manuscripts will be withdrawn from their boxes and the contents compiled for an extraordinary anthology. Those anthology books will be printed from paper milled from that 1000-tree forest.

The artist’s use of the metaphor of tree rings – organically formed each year as a tree grows – and the addition of one manuscript per year – each of its own time, written in consideration of it being read in a far-flung future as part of a collection of time-stamped works – is breathtaking in its simplicity and profoundness.

Aside from the awesome responsibility, these authors are given the gift of surety of a prestigious publication, remembrance of their being, and an audience for their thoughts and creative expression – for many, long after they are gone.

I’ll tell you a secret I hold close to my heart. This is what I want for myself. Not inclusion in the Future Library, nor even to be part of a canon of literature. I don’t count myself among those who deserve that kind of recognition. Nonetheless, I do indeed desire to be read in the future, perhaps by the descendants of this generation of my family, perhaps by random academics that are studying writings of this time period. It is a way to have a legacy.

I know firsthand just how powerful and moving the written word can be, often giving entré into others’ minds. That’s certainly true of my extensive library of nonfiction in my areas of academic interest – reading has been a primary way of gaining and deepening the expertise that has powered my career. But memoirs and collections of personal essays also provide a window into others’ thinking. These works are more intimate, more wide-ranging, more stream-of-consciousness. These are not meant to be detailed accountings of a life, but are more a translation of it. Less explanation and more rumination.

I’ve always been interested in other people’s real-life experiences, what they are thinking, how they are making their way. I want to see the motion of the wheels inside their heads – how they leap from idea to idea, how they figure things out, how they come to conclusion. Good writing can capture your heart and mind, evoke feelings and empathy, open your eyes to experiences and implications. It reveals and transports.

In capturing my own thoughts on a page, I want to provide color commentary for life in these times, not with an eye toward history, but with an eye toward perspective, interpretation of events, everyday reflections. Some of these will be timeless, and some clearly born in these current times. And I want the writing to be well-crafted. I want to set down revelatory word combinations, memorable turns of phrase, musical paragraphs – essays that linger and provoke.

In my career, I am proud to have published work that is practical and instructive, that has supported others’ professional development. I’m moving on to work that is much more personal, and more universal.

I’ve said that I aspire to be a writer-beach-walker in this next chapter of my life. Originally, this was just meant as a description of my primary activities, but the hyphenate has truly become a declaration of identity. The writer part is about practicing a craft and appreciating the written work of others. The beach-walker part is about living a full life, reveling in nature, feeling calmed by the rhythms of the sea.

People ask me about the purpose of my current writing projects, about audience, and sometimes even about marketability. I struggle to answer those questions because my secret hope is legacy, which is beyond my control.

I write to satisfy my creative drive, to challenge myself with new kinds of problems, to practice my craft, to improve my skill, to solidify my learning, to share my experiences and perspective, to hear myself think, to get ideas out of my head so that I can mull them over and shape them into something of meaning. I want to share any hard-won wisdom I’ve gained with others who might gain even a little solace or insight or pleasure from reading it. I want to write beautiful sentences and stirring essays. I want to reflect, to amuse, to console, to contemplate, to educate, to rouse, to evoke. To live on.

I look at the previous paragraph and recognize that my drive is more about me, the writer, and less about you, the reader. My purposes are not so much outward-focused – intending to persuade you or move you – as they are aimed at releasing something in me, putting my existence outside this mortal body. It feels egocentric, this wishing to be known and to show talent, but at the same time, it’s coming from a deep need to share, to engage intimately with others, to do my part to build family and community. Don’t all artists have a kind of “look-at-me” vibe? And yet the result is to bring beauty and energy into the world. I hope.

Like the Future Library, I hope my writing will be read many years from now, and reinterpreted by new generations for their own purposes. Like rings on a tree, my essays show my growth and serve to mark time. It is my deep wish (now no longer secret) to be preserved in my own anthology, to exist in time well past my own.