Thank you, readers! Today marks a year since the publication of I am home. A special anniversary because it was also timed to be released on the birthday of Mom’s first child, my eldest brother. His name was Tommy, and I only knew him through photos and stories, and the plant that graces the background of the cover of I am home. That plant was a gift to my mother at his birth and has been in our family for 72 years now. I have written about that, –it’s a touching story, and the plant, the Dieffenbachia, is thriving in Spain with me. Since we reunited, 7 new offshoots have grown from the base. My mother had 7 children. The plant, the book, and I have done some remarkable traveling, all the way walking each other home.
The second video below (after the cremation fire) is of a beach that is dear and also home to me, Playa San Sebastián in Sitges, where I landed after leaving Los Angeles last spring, and where I stayed a while before I moved into the city, into Barcelona. I used that video to announce the release of the book.
To have finished writing I am home. in the USA and then to carry advanced copies of it with me here to Catalonia, and once here to make the final minute and detailed touches on the cover (a friend witnessed this with her eyes wide) and it seemed each time I opened the book at a random spot, I found something I wanted to change and, well, that all was sweet, symbolic, and serendipitous as so much of life if is, maybe all of it–anyway, if you read the book, you will understand what I mean.
The first slideshow and video are of a thrilling, sometimes tedious (because of the amount of burning hours necessary in a small fire pit), always artistic, funny, enlightening, illuminating, and in the end very smoky burning of all the drafts, the prima materia, of this second book (with wine and a good friend nearby) in the garden of my California home of four years, in Silver Lake, Los Angeles, two nights before I left. I love fire and all the fascinating beauty it creates as you will see. We devised all kinds of methods to make the burning interesting, fun, and efficient. Also, and I digress, I loved that I lived on Fargo Street in LA. Far, go. I did. Anyway, I have no idea how many pages were there, thousands for sure, umpteen drafts, some on loose leaf paper, some spiral bound, some bound as books–all distillation until I reached the point of nuff’s nuff, which was at the end of 2022, a month or so after I decided to return to Spain. I promised myself I would finish it before I left, in a way, leave it behind. Release it and leave the country kind of thing. The book contains the decision to leave Spain, a return to my hometown in Iowa sparked by my mother and son, exploratory travels, eventual moves to Chicago, my college alma mater, and Los Angeles. A decade of life and all my stories and thoughts and feelings about it all that seemed important at the time and poof, up in flames. The essence remains. Hallelujah.
432,000 and some hundred words, that I know, reduced to 56, 000, or something like that. I used to know those numbers by heart. It’s a good sign the count is hard to recall right now.
It is a non-fiction book (isn’t it funny that they describe a genre by what it is not?), and because it is a hybrid of story, poetry, and essay and because the Marianne on those pages is different than the Marianne who is writing these words now and looking up at that plant occasionally, and because it is far from a traditional memoir timeline, I have hesitated to call it a memoir even though I could. (What is in our mind but memory and imagination?) It skips–sometimes darts, occasionally farts, perhaps–around in time, always with a connecting home thread, stitching a tapestry of love lines far and wide, somewhat like the trails little clams leave in the sand of shallow Frentress Lake waters as they move toward the depths. Most pages in the book are chapters distilled into one 6 x 9 inch frame, with the intention of offering a moving and evocative word painting amid a lot of open space.
It was recently described as a book that explores where “home” really is.
The last slideshow is compiled of images readers have sent from around the world. I think I have more but I am tired now and must post this soon or will get carried away and need another fire before too long. Someday I would also like to compile images of all the places around the world where I wrote this book.
I love hearing from you, readers! Thank you. I wrote the first draft for me and all the rest with you on my mind, asking myself how much I could give you while asking the least amount of your precious time. It makes the experience complete when I hear from you. It also nourishes and expands the soul of the book, adding yours to it with each experience of it, and any thought, any spoken or written word about it. (send an email welcomewonder@mariannemaili.com, and please talk about it, tell others). Thank you, thank you, thank you. May I am home. travel far and wide and reach deep and lift high. May it make you laugh and cry and feel happy to be you and to be alive.
Available wherever books are sold. Ask your favorite indie bookstore to get it for you!
Marianne Maili 