Soon I will set off on a hundred mile hike with my septuagenarian parents and esteemed wife along a wall built to keep out the rabble nearly 2,000 years ago. Hadrian's Wall follows the rolling contours of green fields, moors, and marshes from one coast of England to the other. The walk alone could break us, but add in the weeks away from home in a strangely similar, but still different culture. Sure America owes some cultural heritage to England, and Texans are Americans...
But as the t-shirts put it, "Texans don't keep calm. We carry on."
We are not a couth group. Mom and I learned and tried to speak French in Paris. Unfortunately, French spoken in Texan drawl was completely incomprehensible to all native French speakers. It did cause one little old man to pat my head though.
I can't help but think wouldn't it be fun to write the modern travelogue, "Lesbian Texans and Septuagenarians on Hadrian's Wall" as a vague parody of Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.
I'm sure it would be full of my Scotch tasting notes, landscape photos too expensive to print or format in an eBook, and lots about English summer rain and blisters. I'm also sure it would record the socio-emotional growth of a family soaking in too much time together. Of course, there would be some sarcasm and some self-deprecation, but I'm pretty sure my whole point would be sharing my imperfect perspective in the hopes of helping other imperfect humans grow, love, and pursuit happiness with joie de vivre too.
The real question though is would anyone read it?Should I risk dropping my armor and even trying to publish it somehow? Or would it just be better to write it for myself to myself so I don't exhibit any symptoms of the Emperor's New Clothes? What would Mark Twain or Will Rogers do? I think Flannery O'Connor would have said the point is in the living, so write it if it helps you live. And that's probably the answer I need, because I do think that writing it will help me revel more in the moment of living it.
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ReplyDeleteWrite it, no matter what you decide to do with the pages. I recently came across my journal of my stay at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, written in 1973. I had forgotten so much! It's not publishable, but it was like finding treasure for me.
ReplyDeleteI would definitely take notes all the way. And tons of photos. I see that camera in your profile pic. Why not write about it? The way I see it, it's material for several books. Fiction and creative non-fiction travelogues. I'd read it for sure.
ReplyDeleteEven if you elect not to publish, write it.
ReplyDeleteActually, write it..without thought to publishing... then decide layer about that.