Moving time!

My blog site has moved.  I kept getting complaints that people couldn't comment and didn't know how to follow my blog.  So I am going to try something different!   I will eventually copy all the old blog posts from blogspot to wordpress, but for now I'll start with the latest one.

It will be easier to use overall, I believe.  You will be able to comment, to follow, to share on Facebook or Twitter, and so on.   If you were following the old blog, please follow me on this new one too.

I would love some feedback so hopefully this change will make it easier for everyone!   Just click on the link below to find the new blog.  

Here's the new link:  Mary Dee's blog: Smart Girl

Memory: Filling in the Gaps

Guildhalls, Grand Place, Brussels

One problem of writing a memoir about events that happened decades ago is memory!   Even people with the best memories lose some of the details, smooth out the edges, and end up with a conglomeration of notions without the specifics needed to write about them.  


What to do?  I guess in the "olden days" people kept journals, but nowadays we have the Internet!  It wasn't around in 1984 when my story took place, but the cities I visited back then are still around.   What a great excuse to spend my days browsing . . . . 


The story started at an academic conference held at the university in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.  Belgium is a country with a split personality -- there are two languages: French and Flemish.  The original university was in Leuven, but the French part split off and created a new university in a different location.  The town of Ottignies became the foundation for the planned city of Louvain-la-Neuve.  


I remembered arriving at the train station and walking to the conference hotel, but which train station and which hotel?   I spent several days pouring over Google maps of the area -- I found the train station at Ottignies, but there was no hotel within walking distance.  Hmm, try again!   Ah, there's a train station right by the university, and lo and behold, there's the hotel a few blocks away!  The name of the hotel has changed since then, but I remembered the front lawn with a driveway leading up to the hotel.  How interesting it was to have a bird's eye view and imagine myself dragging my bag along that driveway!  And there were the woods behind the hotel where we walked with Klaus and first got acquainted.  


Filling in the gaps in my memory by finding the physical locations of different parts of the story was an interesting exercise in memory.  When I found a location, I apparently tied into a dormant part of my memory banks because I would begin to remember other aspects of my experiences at that location back then.  I vaguely remembered talking to someone as I walked to the hotel -- oh, yes, it was Pierre from Ottawa.  I didn't always remember the conversations to any great extent, but I knew it happened.  


As I progressed through my story, using online resources -- maps, pictures, websites -- I wondered at times how much of my original memory was included and whether I was distorting the view.  What I've read about memory and how our brains create and retain memories, I suspect that I adapted some parts somewhat.  I realized though that I was telling my story today in 2011 looking back at 1984.  If some of the details are manipulated a bit, then I'm okay with that.  I held to the spirit of the original with the intention of presenting an interesting book.  


I also got a lot of hints from the letters themselves.  In our letters to each other, Walter and I both mentioned specific incidents and referred to people around us and exact locations.  That was helpful as well.  I remembered a conversation we had about religion the first night we met, but the letters reminded me that it came up the next day.  Not a major issue, but I moved the conversation in order to be as true to the story as possible.  


During all this time that I was recreating the story, I began to feel the time travel I mentioned in an earlier blog post.  I would work during the day as if I were living in 1984, but of course when I quit work, it was now 2011 again.  A little disconcerting at times!   I was kind of anti-social for a while, not avoiding my friends but not making an effort to go out very often.  I think that was a matter of self-preservation, to not make the task any harder.  Once I had completed writing the narrative part of the story, it was easier to get out and about.  I guess I was trying to avoid a split personality!


These days I'm focused on trying to find an agent and get the book published.  It's fun to remember the struggles of last spring as I sank deeply into the past.  Now I'm looking toward the future -- still time travel, I guess.  


Future:  translating German, organizing and editing the letters

Focus, concentrate . . . are you kidding me?

I woke up this morning to a horrible sound of pounding and scraping, but it shouldn't have surprised me!  The street at the corner has been torn up for months while the water mains were upgraded.  I knew my street was included, but didn't know when.  Well, today is the day!  One of the foremen told me he knocked on my door several different days last week, with no response.  I must have been sleeping all week. . . . 


I took this picture of some of the equipment out my front door a little while ago.  It's some kind of digger that tears up the pavement.  I decided I had better move my car if I wanted to drive anywhere this week.  I've been spoiled by parking just outside my door, but I think I can live with walking 1/4 of a block for a few days. 


The hardest part is the noise!  It's been quiet background noise through all this work, but now it's right in front of my house and much louder.  I guess I'll have to find my earplugs so I can concentrate better.  And take advantage of the short breaks they take.  I've always prided myself on my ability to focus on a task at hand, but I've seldom had this level of distraction!  


This morning I've been trying to write the proposal that I will send to an agent to find someone to help pilot me through the rough waters of getting a book published.  A friend of mine told me when my first book was being published that authors and publishers are natural enemies!   I'm hoping to find some folks that I can co-exist with through this process!   I did a little revising, but it's hard to concentrate!


Now I'm off to my yoga class to find some peace.  Hopefully it will last a while! 


More later. . . .

Time Travel

Starting in February, 2011, I began reading the many letters into my computer, using Dragon Naturally Speaking speech recognition software.  On and on, everyday, I read aloud the words Walter had written me all those years ago.   And then all the words I had written him in return.  It took a long time, many days and weeks!   Some of the letters were pages and pages, pouring out our thoughts to the other so far away!   


I lived in New Orleans then, a beautiful, strange city -- like living in a foreign country within our American borders.  Walter lived in the Western Cape region of South Africa, a pastoral setting, quiet and green, away from the bustle of a big city.  Stellenbosch is a picture from the past with white gabled Cape Dutch buildings, old oak trees, and a view of the mountains. Only half an hour from the cosmopolitan city of Cape Town, the people of this village retain the Afrikaans language.  Worlds apart -- New Orleans and Stellenbosch -- but linked by our letters to each other!  


And so far from Belgium where Walter and I had met!   The letters began with remembrances from our time together -- the walk in the woods where we thought we saw fairies, the excursion to Brugge where we lit the candle, and the day in Brussels when we left the conference early to spend our last day together.  That much could have been the whole romance, but neither of us was ready to let the story end there.  So we wrote -- what we were doing, what we were thinking, what we were wishing.  Soon Walter began sending me occasional audio cassette tapes, as well.   And we talked on the phone, brief conversations limited by the expense of such a long distance. 


Last winter and spring felt like time travel -- I lived in 2011, but I spent my days in 1984.  Over the years I hadn't forgotten that time, but life had intruded and the details had faded somewhat.  Reading the letters brought it back, with all the romance, dreams, and travel!   I was so busy back then, teaching at Loyola, going to parties and gallery openings, and raising my son.   What amazing memories!


I still had so many questions about how to turn all these letters into a book.  My first impulse was to edit and publish the letters, as just that:  the letters between Walter and me.  But I didn't think that told enough of the story -- the references in the letters to our time together wasn't complete, just snapshots.  I asked a long-time friend Norma to read some of the letters to help me decide.  She and I had studied English literature together in grad school at UT Austin, so I knew she would have good advice.  She agreed that the letters alone weren't enough.  


Another option for the book was the fictionalize the story, turn it into a novel.  Several friends I talked to thought that was the best solution.  Nell suggested that fiction would let me change the ending, if I wanted to.  Lots to think about, but that didn't feel right!  Fiction is a great medium, but this story was true, it really happened.  The magic was that it wasn't fiction, it wasn't made up.  I still couldn't decide what to do.  So I continued reading the letters into the computer, day after day!   I felt the answers would come to me eventually.  




Future posts:  plugging gaps in my memory, translating German

Where's Walter?

As everyone who knows me is aware, I am not in a relationship with Walter right now.   In fact, I hadn't been in touch with him in many years.  But last February when I decided to finally write the book about our time together, I felt that I should contact him, to make sure he was still okay with publicizing our private experiences.  But where to start?  I suspected he had retired, but I began by checking the website for Stellenbosch University where he taught for many years.  No luck finding him there!  


On Friday, February 25, 2011, I googled him and found a link with a page devoted to Walter including a fairly recent picture.  He looked much older than I remembered him  naturally, but it had been more than 25 years since I saw him last.  There was also a link to his wife Colleen.  She is an artist who looks like a warm and loving person, the kind of woman I would hope Walter had married. 

Because there was no e-mail address for Walter, I wrote the woman who ran the website, Dr. Rosemarie Breuer.  I explained that I am an old friend of Walter's from the 1980s and wanted to get in touch with him.  I sent the email at about 2 o'clock in the afternoon.  A couple of hours later, I had two messages.  Rosie had written back saying that she had forwarded my e-mail to Walter.  Next was an e-mail from Walter, asking, "Mary Dee, is it really you?" 

Later that evening thinking back about receiving his email, I was in tears.  I became very emotional, partly to have made the connection again after so long.  Also his blog with his many photographs showed his life now.  I was so very happy for him, and knew that our decision all those years ago was the right one. He has found and built a lovely life for himself with Colleen.

I wrote Walter back that afternoon explaining about the book and asking again for his permission to use the material. Back in 1984 he had agreed that writing a book based on our letters was a good idea, and he had given me verbal permission to do so, but that was many, many years ago. I felt just in the few days of being so immersed in his writing from back then, that he deserved to grant the go-ahead before I proceeded.  I really didn't know what he would say although I really hoped that he would understand how important it is to share our story.


Here's part of Walter's response in an email entitled "A Box of Letters": 


Hi Mary Dee – so good to hear from you.
There is a box of your letters stowed away in our house in Dorp Street, Stellenbosch. Colleen, when she saw it, commented:  Why do you want to hang on to them? I don’t remember what my answer was, maybe something like:  It is part of my life which I want to go back to one day.  If Colleen had kept a similar stack of letters, I might have said to her:  Keep them safely knotted together for our grand-children and and let them muse one day about our lives. 
   
Letters, to me, are pathways to recreate the texture, colour and music of our memories which have either dissipated or have over the years amalgamated into one general picture of feel about things. In letters the very touch of time and moving in it is kept.  Yet, one usually regards such letters, precious as they are, as something one need not go back to for fear of getting lost in reveries or melancholy.  They are treasured moments of life well kept how and where they are.

Yes, you do have my permission to use the material of our letters without any ifs or buts.  It was and will remain a wonderful time of my life.


Walter had not lost his poetic touch!  His email had the style of his letters written to me so long ago.




Future posts:  revisiting the past, plugging gaps in my memory, organizing the letters

Stacks and stacks of letters

Nobody recognized the picture on the last blog post so I'm giving you a BIG hint!   That song -- now stuck in my brain -- was from the Perry Como show back in the '60s.  And yes, I'm old enough to remember the show.  Do you?

Back to the topic at hand, I left off the last post ready to tackle the letters between Walter and me.  And so I did!  Well, I started by reviewing what I had been carrying around all these years:  letters from Walter to me, photocopies of my letters to him, a few audio tapes, and printouts of some of the letters.  Back a while ago when I had a Macintosh computer (late 1980s?), I had begun typing up the letters.  The diskette for them was long lost so all I had were the printouts.  Not much help since I would have to retype them.

But wait, there might be a better solution:  speech recognition software!  I had an old version of Dragon Naturally Speaking on my computer so I could read the letters out loud and they would be captured in a word processing file.  I first heard about Dragon Naturally Speaking when a colleague told me that he used it after he got carpal tunnel syndrome and was unable to type.  I gave it a try -- reading the letters was definitely easier than typing them all, but the results were disappointing!  It was easy enough to read the letters, but the software mangled a lot of the words.  Not good enough!  I got discouraged about the project and lost momentum.

At a party at my neighbor's house last February I met Johanna. I had mentioned that I was working on a book, and she and others asked about the topic. I began an explanation at a fairly high level saying it was based on a romance from the 1980s. Johanna took me aside and asked me more and more questions, saying that she was particularly interested in romance. She was clearly fascinated by the story, and at one point as I talked, she pointed out that my face had lit up while talking about the letters and the experience. This conversation was a real inspiration to me, and immediately I began to regain interest in the project.

The next day after taking a walk I got to talking to another neighbor, Dan Connolly.  Once again I mentioned that I was writing a book, but was kind of stuck. He immediately went into his house for a book he wanted me to read. It was The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Creative Battles by Steven Pressfield.  Dan had bought the book at the airport and read it while waiting for a plane. The interesting thing to me about this book was that the act of giving it to me inspired me, even as much as the book itself.  It felt like the world -- or my neighborhood, at least -- wanted me to get going.  

These two incidents, one with Johanna and the other with Dan, put me back on the right track. Monday morning I began in earnest to dictate and edit the letters.  With this new inspiration, I bought and installed the latest version of Dragon to try again. The first step in using speech recognition software is to "train" it to understand your speech.  Once I did the training (by reading some passages aloud) and identifying myself as a speaker of "Southern English," I had much greater success.  Version 11 of Dragon was greatly improved, and I could immediately have more confidence in the results.  Another hurdle crossed!

During this time I was deeply immersed in Walter's life in 1984, as I read aloud his letters and remembered the incidents he referred to.  It almost felt like I was intruding, although of course these letters had been written to me.  But they were written 27 years ago between two individuals were in such a different place, oh, those many years ago.  The question occurred to me whether Walter would still be willing for me to publish the letters.  I hadn't been in touch with him for decades, since 1989, so finding him was the next challenge!  

Future posts:  finding Walter, revisiting the past, plugging gaps in my memory, . . . 

Letters, We've Got Letters, Lots and Lots of Letters!

Okay, I got the first blog post up yesterday.  Today I sent out an email letting folks know about the blog.  So now it's time to deliver!   Where do I start?   Let's go back to last December. . . .

Right after Christmas 2010, I got a call from one of my coworkers who let me know that my position in the company was being eliminated.  So I wasn't "fired" exactly, but I was now out of a job, effective immediately!   I was a little surprised, but more importantly tremendously relieved!   I had dreaded going to work for months, due mostly to the boss (located in a different city, thank Heavens) who thought he knew everything, but . . . well, you get the picture.  Anyway I was free!

First I had to take care of business to sign up for health insurance, etc.   Then the question was what do I do now?   I wasn't ready to retire, but thought I would take some time for myself.  And then I remembered that I had a tote bag full of letters from 1984.  I had moved that bag from New Orleans to Washington, DC, to Austin, Texas, each time saying, "When I have time. . . ."  NOW I had time!

The letters in the bag were written between Walter and me after we met at a conference in Belgium in April 1984.  Many, many letters back and forth!  In July that year, I went to visit Walter in South Africa, in the wine country!  What a wonderful 17 1/2 days that was!  We agreed that some day the letters should be published, one way or another.  Walter made copies of my letters to him so I would have the whole set.

I stayed busy all those years after that.  I was teaching Computer Science at Loyola University in New Orleans at the time, trying to get my first book published.  When that book (Introduction to Natural Language Processing) came out, it caught the attention of a government contracting company in the Washington, DC, area.  They called and offered me a job so I moved to DC.  After three years at the company (SRA International) I realized that I wasn't cut out for that position.  I started my own consulting business which lasted for 10 years.  During that time, I had moved to Austin -- the joy of working for yourself is easy relocation!  

Part of my reason for moving to Austin was the weather!  I had contracted Chronic Fatigue Syndrome in 1993 (a story for another day), which made the cold weather in DC hard on me!  Soon after I arrived, I was hired to teach Computer Science at UT Austin, as a lecturer.  After 5 years, I was hired by a start-up company to help develop part of their Electronic Medical Records system (another story for still another day).  That job lasted 9 years through 4-5 different CEOs and several management companies.

And here it was January 2011 and I was facing my future without a job.  I hadn't applied for a job since 1975 when I first got my Ph.D.   Every time one situation ended another opportunity opened up, so I trusted my instincts.  Writing a book was the right thing to be doing.  It felt right, and I believe that when I should change my situation, something will show up for me.

Time to tackle the letters. . . .

PS:  Who's in the picture?  Are you old enough to remember?

Future posts:  starting to write, finding Walter again, remembering details from way back when, . . .