Author: Marianne Maili

“What myth is your novel like?” Jim McPherson asked years ago, as I rode with him to select a present for his daughter which I would deliver to her upon my return to Barcelona. I was a Visiting Scholar at the International Writing Program in Iowa City at that time, doing research for my dissertation and having one of the times of my life. I was unsure how to answer Jim. “Just tell me about it,” he urged. So I did. “Sounds like Pilgrim’s Progress,” he said.

My eyes widened. “Isn’t that from the 1600s?” He nodded. I wondered what the very modern story of a young woman from rural Iowa, traveling the world as fashion model, getting in and out of trouble at every turn, had in common with a 17th century Christian on a quest. I would soon find out.

The next day, I went to The Haunted Bookshop in Iowa City and bought a copy. Back home in Sitges, I read it with amazed delight. It, and thus, Jim, gave me, for starters, the structure for the novel, as well as a playful approach to naming the characters in it, the protagonist, Lucy Pilgrim, among them.

Yesterday when my bare feet sunk into the sand, then the cool waters of Lake Michigan, tears rose as my heart and body remembered life on the Mediterranean. I love the word “tenderness”, and how it means kindness, gentleness, deep affection; and also sensitivity to pain, soreness; and succulence, too–the quality of being easy to cut and chew. I have become more tender through the pounding of writing and living. It may be the writing that did it, more than the living. My heart is a tender home. Water, too, is a home, and my heart finds solace and inspiration walking, swimming, and bathing in it; looking at it, listening to it, drinking it. We, too, are bodies of water. Writing and reading are ways of swimming in the waters of different lives,  or a way to stand on the shore, looking out, and in.

Do you ever draw? Today I was thinking about how drawing is a kind of writing and writing is a kind of drawing and both are ways of seeing and telling. Storytelling is one of the most life-giving things we humans do for each other. When I draw I see more deeply into things and people. I notice more. I like to follow contours with a pen or pencil, imagining that I am touching what I am looking at while not looking at the paper on which I am drawing. The result is an unrealistic image where a certain vivid emotional truth or mood shines through. Same for writing. Both are exercises in patience, concentration, and observation. It was the great playwright and person, Lisa Schlesinger, who suggested I draw Lucy’s story before I wrote it. A map was the result. A fascinating map through amazing terrain, on and off the page, leading to you, the reader.

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I write about adventure. And relationships. Which are similar. I write about relationships with oneself and others. Also similar. How we live with ourselves and how we live with others. Ditto. Adventure can be physical, emotional, spiritual. Relationships, too. One can travel far into oneself and far out into the world. These journeys are inseparable. How to remain whole in a world that tries to break us into pieces?  What kind of risks do we take and what and who constitutes their value? How much are our lives worth to us? Do we extend that to others? How can we not?  I follow these questions like clam trails in the shallow part of the lake, looking for the life they lead to. I rarely have answers to the big questions other than to ask more. Curiosity is the driving force of my life. I also write about creativity. Curiosity and creativity. We are all creative. “What are you creating with your life? Are you living according to your values?” I ask myself and the characters I write about. On Saturdays I like to take Divvy Bike adventures around the city. This morning I rode north to vote in the French elections, and I saw beauty everywhere. I also write about beauty. I liked seeing the French, American, and Chicago flags flipping in the wind, tethered and flying together. Could all of humanity do that–stay connected while flying?  Imagine a world without nations, without flags. Human beings being human as sole identity. And today especially as thousands march to remind us to think about our relationship with the earth, with creation. How do we treat who and what nourishes us? How do we nourish mother earth? How do we nourish ourselves and others?

I see a fountain sprinkling, as if onto the diners in the sunshine, at the restaurant across the street. A vision within a vision as I look through my window and theirs at waiters carrying wine glasses. It looks like Europe in there. In here I am looking at piles of writing, drawing, and photographs. Wondering what to do with it and how much it matters. Both a lot and not at all, it seems.  Moved by re-reading the exegesis I wrote for the PhD, the clarity and depth of it. Tears rose as I read sentences in it, then again as I peered into the excerpts of twenty-six years of diaries. The folders of family history. Notebooks with poignant and funny things parents and son said to me. The novel-in-progress waits for my daily visit. The first one, Lucy, go see., pulls at my pant leg, asking “when are you going to introduce me to more people?”