“We’ll see what we see.”
Tag: Musings
Things I wasn’t expecting when I started drafting my newest book
Yeah, I know about the adage, “Write about what you know,” but I’ve come to see that advice needs to be balanced by “write about what you want to know.”
What we might call a creative tension. If you’re a writer, I hope that helps.
My latest book, which started out as a humble and brief profile of Dover’s Quaker Meeting but turned into a contrarian New England history, could be presented as one example.
I mean, Dover is still seen as a shadow to neighboring Portsmouth, which is much smaller and more uppity. Get real!
Back to the book at hand and the research that’s gone into it. Here are some things that surprised me.
- Thomas Roberts as a cofounder of the settlement, rather than William Hilton. That alone alters the traditional telling.
- The Devonshire connection, which gave Dover a much different culture to build on rather than the one the Puritans presented.
- The extent of New Hampshire’s role as a haven for dissidents and misfits.
- Puritans as less than monolithic. They were primed for revolution but full of insecurities.
- Richard Waldron’s power in Boston. He was more than a rich hick in the sticks.
- The crucial impact of a few key provision in New Hampshire’s agreement to come under Massachusetts management. A male didn’t have to be a member in good standing in the town church in order to hold land or to vote in town affairs.
- Dover Friends Meeting as one of the seven oldest in America. It has a more prominent place in Quaker history than has been recognized.
- Early English resettlement of Maine after the French and Indian devastations coming around 1730 rather than 30 years later.
- Dover’s textile mills’ predating those in Lowell, Lawrence, and Manchester. In fact, the founders of Lowell looked to Dover for inspiration. In other words, we weren’t a small, insignificant mill town.
- The Sorcerer who was a member of Meeting. You’ll have to read the book to find out about him.
Order your copy of Quaking Dover at your favorite bookstore. Or request it at your public library.
As long as we’re looking at dreams …
Since the Red Barn is excerpting from my personal Dreams Journal this year, we might as well also consider a few things about the phenomenon itself.
- They’re some of the best movies you’ll ever see, at least if you like Fellini or Wes Anderson. Think entertaining, personal, and surreal.
- They typically have one foot in the past and the other in the present. Thus, when I dream about trying to make a deadline in the newsroom, which I left a decade ago, I’m likely to be anxious about something else I’m facing today.
- If you’re encountering a nightmare but conscious enough, try looking straight into it. In my experience so far, it will shy away from revealing the evil things it portends.
- Dreams exist somewhere outside of normal moral restraints and thus must be accepted as such. You shouldn’t wake up feeling shamed or guilty.
- They’re windows into the unconscious and subconscious mind and emotions. It’s an entirely different reality and true in its own way. That is, dreams can run around your ongoing self-denial.
- Recurrent themes can open deep perspectives into ongoing mental and emotional states.
- If you’re working on any psychological issues, your dreams can run about six weeks ahead of surfacing into awareness.
- As for the quality of your visions? Do you dream in color? Or tones of gray?
- Is there dialog? As in, who’s doing the speaking?
- Beware of what you watch before just before bedtime. A recent spate of binge-viewing of Community led to some really strange sleep.
A few things that surprised me about early Dover
In researching my new book, Quaking Dover, new findings pointed me in fresh directions. Sometimes they came in examining something I knew a little about already. Here are a few:
- Dover was a wilder place than you’d expect. At one point, it was a haven for harassed leaders and dissidents from Massachusetts, and for decades its frontier was torn by massacres, raids, and scalpings — much longer than anywhere in the Wild West.
- Despite its upstream location on the Piscataqua River, Dover emerged as New England’s third oldest permanent settlement and the seventh oldest in the United States. That makes New Hampshire the second-oldest state in New England, rather than Rhode Island, Connecticut, Maine, or Vermont.
- The earliest mills were for sawing wood rather than grinding grain. Shipbuilding and shipping, requiring barrels and boxes, were major industries. Food could be imported.
- Dover nearly had the first Baptist church in America, but its minister fled town, along with some followers who established Piscataway, New Jersey — named for the Piscataqua River.
- Edward Starbuck, sire of the surname in the New World, was elder of the town church until he ran afoul of its practice of baptizing children and its objections to the length of his hair. He left Dover to become a founder of Nantucket, where his family became well-known Quakers. His son repeatedly returned to Dover.
- The Quaker movement arrived in Dover earlier than has been acknowledged. Two of the three men hanged in Boston had visited Dover less than a month before — the third had been in town the previous year. Shortly afterward, three women missionaries in Dover were tied to the tail of an ox cart, banished, and ordered whipped in every town to the south. Even so, a third of the population of Dover soon identified as Quaker.
- Women were coequals in the Quaker movement, illustrated by many of Dover’s recorded ministers over the years.
- Early settlement of Maine was largely across the river from Dover. Access by water was more like crossing the street nowadays. Kittery House, named after a manor in England, sat in today’s Eliot, opposite Dover Point. Its proprietor, Nicholas Shapleigh, gave crucial protection to Quakers. Dover Quaker Meeting had meetinghouses in both Eliot and Berwick, close to the homes and farms of many members. Later generations of Dover Friends fanned out across the state, where their surnames remain quite visible.
- John Greenleaf Whittier was famed across the country as an abolitionist and poet, but Whittier Falls and Whittier Street in Dover were named for his uncle. The poet’s mother, on the other hand, grew up as a member of Dover Meeting and married in its meetinghouse.
- Landmark Tuttle’s Red Barn, a popular market at what was proclaimed America’s oldest family-owned and operated farm, was home to generations of Quakers. That “oldest” distinction is challenged by descendants of Thomas and Rebecca Roberts, themselves with a Quaker identity and founders of the Piscataqua settlement itself.
Order your copy of Quaking Dover at your favorite bookstore. Or request it at your public library.
There’s one outstanding King of Maine
The popular (and how) “king of horror” has long deserved kudos for getting so many people to read, period, especially in today’s mass-media and marketing saturation. (I refuse to say “culture.”) Plus, there’s evidence he’s a much “better” writer than his top-selling novels reflect, given his appearances as a poet under pseudonyms and a few rogue novels. He’s quite conscious of structure and a bigger picture, for one thing.
Add to that poet Donald Hall’s observation that New England has a gothic nature, which King has played in spades, and King’s own comments about today’s publishing scene in his duels with the critics, often with advice I wished I’d been able to apply to my own work, but mine remains what it is.
All I’m saying is don’t underestimate him.
- His upbringing, should you care, would easily fill a dark series of stories all on its own. Somehow, he managed to get back to Maine.
- His wife, Tabitha Spruce, seems to be much more of a muse and guiding spirit than has been acknowledged. They met in college at the University of Maine and are still married. She stayed with him through a period of heavy alcohol abuse followed by recovery and sobriety.
- He’s said he married her “because of the fish she cooked for me,” and his favorite foods are salmon and cheesecake.
- Often critically dismissed as a commercial, pop-culture writer – horror, supernatural, suspense, crime, science-fiction, and fantasy fiction – King nevertheless embodied a seriously dedicated author who spent long hours day after day at the craft. He had good reasons to return fire at the more elite literary side of the profession.
- He’s never left his blue-collar background. Witness his longtime residency in Bangor, Maine, where you can live in one of the city’s classic big mansions and still be one more regular guy.
- Despite his wealth, his politics lean left. He and his wife are active philanthropists – ranking sixth among Maine charities. It’s said no deserving child in Maine is denied a college education, thanks to the King scholarships.
- He’s an avid Red Sox fan. And a daughter’s a Unitarian-Universalist minister. Wanna talk about being a New Englander?
- His life was changed by an afternoon accident in 1999 when he was struck by a minivan while walking along a highway that left him severely injured and sent him to Florida to live through our harsh winters. Still, he writes on.
- He’s claimed to not use cell phones, though that was a while ago. As for other technology? There’s his recent spat with Twitter, which tried to charge him for contributing content for the platform – rather than the other way around.
- His 65-plus books have sold more than 400 million copies and spawned countless films, TV series and miniseries, and comic books. And still he’s advocating for the better royalties and advance payments to entry-level authors.
The King home in Bangor is a popular tourist attraction. A tree trunk outside has been transformed into a wild sculpture.
Ten major American religious dissidents
Who says you had to conform growing up? Here are some people who made America the land of the free, not that I agree with all of them. Still, it really does come down to language and how we use it. Especially when religion and politics are mixed in.
- Samuel Gorton. Just plain onery in early New England.
- Roger Williams. Leading to a progressive movement then known as Baptists.
- Anne Hutchinson. Pointing the way to New England Quakers.
- John Woolman. A Quaker who worked ardently against slavery and other economic perils.
- Henry David Thoreau. It’s a Unitarian thing, ultimately.
- William Miller. The foremost of the voices that would become the Seventh-day Adventist church. Ellen G. White emerged as an essential proponent in its development as it organized in Battle Creek, Michigan, and then Takoma Park, Maryland.
- Joseph Smith. You know, the Mormons. Along with Brigham Young and Utah.
- Dorothy Day. Catholic Workers, a truly radical movement.
- Martin Luther King Jr. Civil rights and much more.
- Bayard Rustin. Gay Black Quaker ahead of his time on many fronts.
Who am I overlooking?
With ten years of blogging under my belt, let me say
- You have a global audience. I remember being startled after posting a posting of a snowy New England day and getting a comment from the Philippines, “I’ve never seen snow.” In my life, I’ve always taken it for granted. And professionally, my daily journalism career focused on a well-defined circulation area, perhaps a single county or an entire state, depending on the newspaper at the time. My Red Barn posts, on the other hand, often get read on five or six continents.
- On WordPress, you’re part of a community. Sometimes posting can feel a bit like corresponding to pen pals in the old days. And it’s important to see what they’re up to as well and letting them know you’ve stopped by, too.
- At first, I didn’t understand “likes.” Yes, I was that naïve about social media. They do help me know who’s tuning in on a given day or topic, even though the number of hits now is generally lower than I had five or so years ago – I take it that’s one thing happening across the board. But I’m also surprised by the number of new likes on archived posts.
- Tags. They help invite readers. Just don’t use too many or too few. These days, I’m finding readers show up less frequently but then stay around longer, sampling other recent posts or digging into my deep past. I do find tags quite helpful in navigating the WP Reader for fresh voices.
- Categories. I find them quite useful in navigating the Barn, so I assume that applies for others, too. With the Red Barn’s unique merry-go-round approach to topics, I find them quite helpful in organizing the ongoing mix.
- Scheduling. Unlike most other bloggers, I often work on posts long ahead of their release. It’s one way to create time for my other projects, admittedly, as well as to juggle topics for a better rhythm of presentation. The practice also allows me to go back and polish a post before it goes live or to add from additional reflection. And paradoxically, it can also have me releasing in a more timely pace with the changing seasons – working “live” would actually put me behind the action.
- Classic editor, rather than the newer “block” format. Old-timers here at WordPress will definitely understand. Ditto for the Administrative working option.
- Reader’s comments are important. Some days they’re the best part of a post. But they’ve definitely declined, and I’m not sure whether that’s a consequence of the Barn’s current appearance or of its shifting round of topics or just something else in general.
- Photography. Despite a lifelong love of visual art, I had intended the Red Barn to be a text vehicle. But then photography crept in, first through a borrowed digital camera and then a cheap point-and-shoot Kodak leading to an Olympus and now an unbelievable smart phone. In short, I now list photography among my hobbies, even if it does seem like cheating compared to the historic and very real craft of light meters, f-stops, and darkroom developing of film. As for texts, length remains a puzzle – sometimes a longer “think piece” gets more hits than the bright briefs that seem essential on other social media. And photography on WP? Let me suggest it seems to be more thoughtful than gossipy or copped from other sources.
- I’m still ambivalent about the decision to branch out into related blogs. Should I have kept most of their posts within the Barn? Or would that have cluttered the mix? The genealogy of Orphan George does seem to demand its own bookshelf, as it were, as do the free poetry chapbooks of Thistle Finch, but I do wonder about the money-and-your-life project now archived at Chicken Farmer as well as the Quaker spirituality and Bible reflections at Sowing Light.
Oh, yes, it does take far more time than I anticipated, even when I had a backlog of poetry and correspondence for republication. And I do miss the Fresh Pressed selections in the Reader feed. But not so the self-congratulatory “awards” nominations that made the rounds.
Personal goals in the new year
- Be more attentive to relationships.
- Do a better job of housecleaning.
- And gardening slash yard work.
- Read more of the books I’ve amassed and plunge through the backlog of magazines.
- See to the home renovations.
- Relish in the publication of Quaking Dover.
- Exercise more. Including time for treks in the wild.
- Revisit my journals.
- Have better dreams.
- Act my age.
All in a word
Kraut? How about “pickled cabbage,” any better?
A few great regrets in my life
Maybe it’s just the end of the year and looking ahead, but let’s be honest.
There are things we’ve all done that we wished had gone differently.
Here are some of mine.
- Not knowing the realities of boy-girl relationships back as a teen. I missed out on a lot of fun and companionship. Maybe I should even add learning to dance, and not that four-square stuff they tried to stuff us into back as sixth-graders. No, New England contras and Greek circles were both epiphanies, much later.
- The big dream that turned out to be false. Along with all the promises I believed.
- Blowups and inadequacies in parenting.
- Divorce. And an inability to confront her long before that. Ancient history now, but even so.
- Hurting others.
- Failing to make a bestsellers list.
- Leaving the Pacific Northwest with my tail tucked ‘tween my legs. Even though I finally wound up living in a couple of places that suit me even better.
- Not being able to see a big research project through to completion. Not our fault, but I still believe it would have made a huge difference in an awareness of how politics and public services really work.
- All the missed social cues and opportunities that went with that. Yes, post high school. It may have even meant my professional career would have gone more Big Time.
- All those years of little to no physical exercise, even if I am in pretty good shape for my age.
