WRITING PROMPT

“At first I didn’t know it was fire.”

I’m in a writer’s workshop led by Mary Sojourner, with several other eager disciples. We are by no means novices – the group (OWAC) is not for wannabes; but established, credentialed writers, editors, and even a scruffy publisher who looks like he just rolled in on the “3:10 to Yuma” – greasy hair slicked away from his leathered face, conspicuously sporting a tall felt bowler and long duster, despite the heat.

We’re in the back dining area at Tamarack Lodge, a boxy room lined with knotty pine paneling and old black and white photos, and crowded with tables and chairs. Orange glass lamps are hung too low from the ceiling. We are seated in uncomfortable straight-backed chairs at a cluster of plywood tables (clearly meant for linens) drinking too-strong coffee.

Mary is seated in front of a picture window, through which I can see leaves dancing in the wind like jingling bells. But she’s back lit, so I can’t see her face or expressions. I merely see the silhouette of her round head bob as she doles out anecdotes, wit and suggestions. She’s wise and irreverent. Candid. A little inappropriate. Citing the works of Kerouac and London, she remarks, ‘And that was before hallucinogens,’ (drawing out the word into a seven-syllable, five second utterance), ‘in the days of alcohol, peyote and very bad dope.’

She tells us to slow down. She doesn’t have the answers, she says. She provides a writing prompt, forbids us from stopping, sits demurely (she will bristle at that suggestion, no doubt) keeps track of our 20 minute time allowance, and then we read.

“At first I didn’t know it was fire.

I was at the tail end of the trail ride, eating the dirt of the preceding horses: 20 clip-clopping hooves stirring up the chalky loam on the track to Rainbow Falls in the Eastern Sierra. I rubbed my tongue over the grit covering my teeth, as the rolling, tumbling clouds of dust blocked the guide from my view.

I elected to bring up the rear, I said, because I wanted to trail Lindsey, who had never ridden a horse before; and her mount – a fat-assed mule named Hillbilly – was indeed taking advantage of that; routinely veering off course, going right when the rest went left, and stopping and starting at will. So I stayed behind to marshal her …But in truth, I wanted some solitude. I am a sailor and the ocean is my first love. So I desired a little time alone – an ‘affair’ if you will – with the land.

I was out of earshot of Bobby, the trail guide, and missed his snippets of information about the trail, the Sierras, the falls, the fire. So when we bent around the granite outcropping, and surveyed the mountainside covered with scorched tinder – so many sticks poking up into the bluebird sky; so many logs laying catawampus on the ground – I was aghast. The hills had looked so peaceful and green.  But these stumps looked like legions of tombstones. Like death.

Eventually the word worked its way back. It had been a fire, 20 years ago, that had devastated this sweep of mountains, rushed through the valley, and left these skeletons in its wake. And here – two decades later – was the most nominal regrowth. The slightest hint of regeneration. I never knew a fire could cause such devastation for so long.

So I suppose I am to be writing something fictitious.                         

And how it would be clever to segue into some tale of trial and tribulation … about how the forest fires of our lives can leave decades of devastation, and how hard it is for something new to take hold in the charred soil. And yet, how a plush carpet of green is pushing up between the remains …”

We sit in somewhat humility and awe, presenting our work with apologies and disclaimers, and even though her criticisms are meager (she says nothing about either of the pieces I read. I am either very, very good, or very, very bad) I walk away feeling inspired.

Mary gives me a lift back to the hotel, moving the two stuffed toy ‘guardians’ from the passenger seat to the debris field in the back. We talk easily (‘You’re poor?’ she asks. ‘I’m a writer,’ I emphasize. She nods.) and I notice more than one similarity between us (which I will not reveal, to preserve our dignity).  She gives me a book (“Delicate”) which she refuses to sign (‘W don’t sign for friends, only customers.’) and I feel as if I want to run back to my room and write. I don’t ... but I know I can.