publishing – For the Archives

Posted on October 14, 2013 by Jessica Dofflemyer · 5 Comments

Fresh Air

It’s true I’ve been thinking about the book. My first, and newly published one. An offering of a year’s chronicles of prose, poetry and photography through a time when I was raising my son on my own, trying to find inspiration as a woman, mother and artist.

Now that it’s out in the world – those words all collected and compact – the stories simmer, potent, in one spot. They steam in the ether. Find their way to me and swirl around.

Releasing them as as a book is the revisiting of an era. A time, that now, is just a helium ballon left over from last week’s party. Where once it pressed against a bedroom ceiling, filled full to be freed into the yonder, it now barely brushes the floor, hovering and wrinkled. This ballon has served its purpose. New celebrations await, with fresh party favors to be had.

So this weekend was the insertion of the needle into the lingering balloon (and when they’re in this state, sometimes it’s no easy pop, more like a strong insertion). The remaining, stale air from that party-of-the-past came falling out in a final deflation.

Not to say my book is a dead balloon. Actually, it’s been more like a hot-air balloon ride lifting me to new perspectives. And that’s the beauty (and challenge) of setting stories free. In my experience, part of the power of telling the tale is letting it go. Once words hit air, they drift from our safe-keeping. Stories shared with others take on new forms, released from our control.

It is in the early dark of my house this morning, when all of this is considered. I’m going through my little ritual. The sun is not yet risen. As usual, my son and husband are still sleeping. Moodah the dog, follows me, room by room, with clicking toenails on the wood floor. I am burning incense, listening to the airy hum of the propane flame against my stovetop espresso maker. And then, all goes silent.

Funny, just last night I wondered how much longer our propane tank would last. We’re subletting this current home, so I’m still learning about the inner workings of our practical infrastructure. I know we have two tanks under the house, with the convenient rigging of a system that allows you to flip a switch to the back-up tank when you run out.

This was pointed out to both the Bohemian and I by the homeowner in our walk-through session before moving in. And I’ll admit it, I only halfway paid attention. Why? Because the Bohemian was squatted there, looking more closely at the mechanisms, and I just decided to let him.

The truth is, in life before the Bohemian, I was taking note of every detail and executing each necessity of home for Jeb and I. There was no husband, no man with which to defer. And there were plenty of broken down hot water heaters, faulty washing machines, and leaking pipes. I hauled propane tanks aplenty. This was an era. One that has since passed. And it is the one of which my book offers a snapshot. The one that’s been expelling the last bits of long-past, party air.

So this morning, I ponder my situation. I definitely want coffee. It is just too stereotypical-helpless-wife to wake the Bohemian and ask for a reminder on how to switch the tanks. I dig around my inner resources for gumption. It’s not too far away. Grab a flashlight and head outside.

The tanks are underneath the house, though no rats are encountered, no cobwebs even. The switch is in plain flashlight view. I make the flip with surprising ease, go inside and fire up the stove. Simple. Just that easy.

Well, then. I’ve still got it (resourcefulness and self-sufficiency, that is).

So, let there be flame, anew! Let there be fresh stories. More parties. Surprising gifts.

An upgrade, perhaps. From a single, helium floater to a hot-air balloon ride, revealing fantastic views.

Posted on October 12, 2013 by Jessica Dofflemyer · 4 Comments

Levitation and Pearls, Love and Motherhood

Something happened in that room, in the white house, tucked inside the orange grove. There was a low table, shaped to look like a giant pumpkin, where my seven-year old body sat. My toes were deep in olive-green shag carpet, as exotic zoo animals looked on from my bedroom wallpaper. There, I punched away at the manual typewriter before me – caps lock, engaged – writing the story of the miniature mermaid caught in a jar. The title: “A SINGLE PEARL.”

There was no delete key. I knew not of white-out. No, it was a full-on, forward-motion, metal-and-ink, telling of the evil man who trapped a mermaid, and her inevitable and clever escape. Words found their way from my imagination to silver keys that clanked black ink on textured paper. Enraptured by the rapid impressions of letters to page, I was unswerving in my mission with the Muse.

The experience, so visceral, that I can still recall the unusual sensation of hovering above my chair, as if I were levitating. A tingling lightness coursed through my being as I typed. Each tapped key punctuating the perfection of that moment. All was aligned and right. And though the sense of floating out of my pumpkin table chair was a little ‘other-worldly’, it felt refreshingly familiar and quite real. This. This was it. This was good stuff.

journal entry_2013-10-11

Even though my mom was busy with three children under the age of eight, she took notice of my writing and gifted me a legal-sized accounting book as a journal. My entries began in 1982, with sporadic spells of prolific chronicling and expansive gaps of silence. By 1995 I was 21 and writing with much more frequency, eventually signing off on the last page of my beloved journal, gifted to me thirteen years prior.

Today, I have storage bins full of the hardbound journals that followed over the next fifteen years. Long before the internet, it was just me with pen and paper. My journals were my touchstones. They were often collaged with random photos on the cover, filled with sketches, sometimes holding pages pressed with wildflowers or feathers. These books were markers of an era. My archives.

By my late thirties, I’d warmed to computers and made friends with technology. I especially saw the value of the internet as it connected me to a world that was so distant from the remote Hawaiian island where I lived. Based on the premise that if you do something for 40 days in a row it creates a habit, I decided to commit myself to writing in the public sphere on a blog I titled “For the Archives.”

I was a single mother, raising a six-year old boy on my own, facing the challenges of rent, groceries, work, loneliness, and downright overwhelm. In the midst of it all, I was trying to remember, that one day, I may look back and wish I’d had more appreciation for all the messiness of life with love and motherhood.

Still, I wondered if it was worth my while to write, publicly, about the experience of sorting through my junk drawer. What I concluded was that if a junk drawer was what I had to work with, I might as well try to glean some beauty, seek some metaphors, and share it. So I wrote about ordinary details, then tried to see them in new light. After 40 days of posting, I didn’t want to stop.

That was over three years ago. Since then, nearly 750 posts have been written to the Archives. My son is close to turning ten. Now, I even have a husband.

The truth is, despite the challenges of that first year of blogging on the Archives, it was a precious time. I’m grateful it’s recorded. From broken hot water heaters, to heartbreak, to Lego action figures, I followed some kind of thread. As I felt my way through the unknown, looking closely at the most mundane helped me to find sparks of the profound.

I’ve combed the Archives from that first year and created a collection of prose, poetry and photography that chronicle my experiences during that time, as a woman, a mother, and an artist. Volume 1: Love and Motherhood, is the first in a series that is now available in the Kindle store on Amazon. If you’ve enjoyed reading the Archives, this compilation distills some of the best of that initial year.

I look back in time at my seven-year old self in my bedroom at the pumpkin table, hovering above green shag. I wonder at that feeling, sparked by the experience of imagination moving into letters, forming into words, and then tapping on to a page. What did I know then?

And what do I know now?

That I love a good story. That I want to remember the magic that weaves through all the daily details. That I wish for all our greatest dreams to come true.

We all have our pearls. This book is one of mine.

I hope you enjoy!

For those without a Kindle, you can still read the book by downloading a free Amazon app that lets you read on your Mac or PC, your phone, your tablet, or even your web-browser.

Here’s the link: http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1000493771