The Joni Mitchell song “Big Yellow Taxi” has been running through my mind lately. I have thought of that lyric referencing “paving paradise and putting up a parking lot” when stories of drilling in National Parks and abolishment of protections for wild creatures are reported. The ides of eliminating environmental protections and destroying the irreplaceable saddens me. Much like the song says, you don’t always know what you’ve got til its gone. The destruction of the natural world, for money, may be an irreversible catastrophe.
I’ve been thinking about this in terms of the literary life, though through a less catastrophic lens. A literary conference I’ve attended a number of times was called The Muse and the Marketplace. What does a literary conference have to do with environmental issues? The words in that title. Muse. Marketplace. In the conference they were meant to delineate the difference between the art and the business of writing. Yet, as those words echoed in the potential environmental disasters on the horizon, they also resonated with my own writing journey.
My first full-length work is a memoir essentially about the worst event of my life, as memoirs often are. And as with many memoirs there are lessons learned and eventually it is a story of hope and love. It is a work that was deeply inspired by the Muse, by intuition and spirituality, the connection with the here and hereafter. Somewhere along the way in this arduous process, it became more about the Marketplace. The writing, with all those voices from classes and feedback, became unintentionally centered on what this or that editor thought, or what that consultant told me might “sell”. The book has been back and forth in revisions, here and there in querying of agents and publishers. I’ve had moments that I was about to shelve it, and delve back into a historical fantasy novel I’ve been writing
Until I had an epiphany. In a number of versions, I was clearly paving over the spirit of the story, putting up structures and parking lots with the goal of getting it published. Along the way, I lost the heart of the story, the spiritual meaning that inspired it in the beginning. As a family member said “Who cares if some people don’t get it? The right ones will.”
As I revised, I would find scenes and vignettes and storylines and wonder what in the world they were doing in the manuscript. The moment I looked at this through a clear lens, remembering the reason for writing the memoir, and the overarching theme, readers “got” what I was saying. And after an exquisitely long journey, I felt a peace, an ease, knowing that the work is now what it was supposed to be. Remembering what inspired me to write in the beginning brought me back to myself.
The environmental concerns and this literary journey of mine might seem far apart. In truth, they are deeply connected. When the motivation for anything is solely financial, without thought to the meaning behind it, loss inevitably occurs, whether financial or creative or spiritual.
Nature is the magic of the world. The muse. A delicate balance of ecospheres, the living, breathing alchemy of our planet. The inspiration for so much of the creative life, particularly mine.
We lose sight of the beauty of the forest, when our only vision is the monetary worth of the trees, or the land. The intrinsic worth of something, that Marketplace, whether the natural world or the literary works we create is not solely contingent on dollars and cents.
That parking lot in the song? We do need them. Getting a heartfelt creative work published is a worthy goal. The key is to realize what you have before it is gone, and find a way to balance the magic with the practical.
Read more of Susan’s work at Reckon here.
Susan Schirl Smith is a writer, photographer and holistic nurse living on the Seacoast of New Hampshire. Her essays have been published in WBUR’s Cognoscenti, Pangyrus, Silver Birch Press, Kind Over Matter, and the Porter House Review, among others. Her photography has been featured in Barren Magazine and L’Ephemere Review, along with local newspapers.
She has always been fascinated by the infinite possibilities of the world, and has owned a holistic wellness center, worked as a creative coach, designed websites, taught meditation and self-development classes, along with working in nursing in hospital and community settings. Her memoir in revisions is Desperado, a story of grief and hope, and the connection with loved ones that lasts forever.