Behind the Books We Write

^{photo credit: Barb Kinney}

by Terry Tempest Williams, author of The Glorians

     What if we wrote a sequel to each book we write composed of what we didn’t say in the first book? Would they be comprised of secrets? Offensive passages? The truth beyond the truth? After the facts and beyond the craft of the narrative we have constructed, what did we omit, what did we forget, and what did we come to discover, uncover after our book was published?  

     Here is how I would begin the sequel to The Glorians – Visitations From The Holy Ordinary now.

     In the fall of 1973, I enrolled in my first poetry class at the University of Utah. Robert Mezey was a visiting poet. He was blunt and self-assured around our workshop table, and at times, a captious man. The literary critic Dana Gioia described Mezey as “brilliant, mercurial and often rebellious.”

     What I remember most about my first writing professor was his first pronouncement: “I know you want to be poets, some of you will be, most of you won’t. But here is my one piece of advice: Never write about a dream.” 

     Somewhere within the DNA of my eighteen-year old self, I registered this advice as a protest. It took me 50 years to finally write about a dream.

     On March 20, 2020, the dream I had was this: I was walking through Harvard Yard. It was fall, the red, orange, and bronze maples were resplendent. I had to get to the tower (there is no tower) and when I turned and saw it, I walked toward it. There were two ways to reach the top: a direct staircase up the center; and a spiral staircase on the side. I chose the side entrance and climbed up the spiral staircase. When I reached the top of the tower, I realized I was standing in the ruins of Cassandra’s Temple. I had the distinct feeling I had forgotten something.

I heard my name called. I turned. And there was a female professor with students standing behind her, they had taken the direct staircase to the top. The black rod iron gate was locked

“Do you remember the vow you made to us,” she said. “Remind me,” I answered.

     “Your vow is the epic documentation of the Glorians.”

     And then, I woke up.

     What is a Glorian?

     In the darkness of that morning, one week after the world had shut down due to a global pandemic from the coronavirus, I leaned over and grabbed my notebook and pen, always on my bedstand, and wrote, “The Epic Documentation of the Glorians.”  

     I have been following the path of this dream for the past six years.

     I also remember Professor Mezey saying to me at the end of the quarter, “I think you have a promising career writing for Hallmark cards.”

     Who do we trust? What do we discard? What do we remember and what do we forget?

     I do not want to forget my dreaming life. I do not want to discount what my unconscious mind knows and my conscious mind has yet to discover. Who benefits when we are told our dreaming mind is never to be explored? Could it be that by forfeiting our dreams, those in power can override what we know in our bones, that we can dream a new world into being?

     I am remembering for the first time, Dear Reader, another detail that remains from Robert Mezey’s influence on The Glorians. A Hallmark card does appear in this book. I sent it to my husband. It read simply, “I have no words.” I sent it because I was angry. I sent it because I felt I had been betrayed. I sent it because all I have are my words and he had ignored them. I had never sent a Hallmark card to Brooke in 50 years of marriage. My rage would be felt before he even opened it, when he received a sky blue envelope complete with a generic stamp of an American flag. I sent it because as writers all we have are our words born out of what we know in our bodies that are too often dismissed as emotional and irrational fluff. Inside the envelope, the card was covered in clouds.

     Words are what we fear, especially those that come from our dreams.

     I live in the red rock desert of Utah. We are experiencing a 2500-year drought. What I know as a writer is our words are powerful enough to bring forth rain.

     Writers are dreamers with our pens and notebooks by our side.