Women in Lit

Laura Ingalls Wilder, Rose Wilder Lane, and other women have fortunately been "allowed" to be writers (and therefore a part of history as well as recorders of it), although so many women didn't have the opportunity to learn to read and write, something we take for granted today in the U.S.A.. I won't even get into the scarcity of education for women in other countries, but just say that it's atrocious.

When I was in high school, I took a class called Women in Literature, and I probably should dedicate this post to my teacher, Ms. S.. She gave me a lot of encouragement regarding my ideas and writing. I was as quiet as a mouse in the class, feeling far too shy to participate. I never raised my hand. I couldn't. I was painfully shy, and must have turned crimson when called on. Once, I had to give an oral presentation, and stood in front of the class, panic stricken, sick to my stomach, knees shaking, completely enervated. It was awful! I was awful! Ms. S. told me I had "low energy" during the presentation. However, I always did well on my essays about literature by Virginia Woolf and other famous women authors. My classmates were surprised that I actually had a voice, not spoken but written, because I was so quiet. These days, I find that I can (usually) talk up a storm with just about anyone, but I still remember my shy days, and think of Ms. S., who believed in me.


Photo of Laura Ingalls Wilder from Wikipedia

Pioneers

The Cowardly Lion in the Wizard of Oz sought courage and went to great lengths to find it. It seems to me that both Laura Ingalls Wilder and her daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, must have been born with a large amount of courage. Even though these women were not expected to do much outside of traditional work, both chose to write, and were independent, adventurous, and above all else perhaps, courageous. They wrote because it was important to them, and they also performed their more traditional roles as well as wives and mothers. In West from Home, along with vivid descriptions of the World's Fair, San Francisco, and other sights, Laura gives her husband, Manly, precise directions about managing this and that on the farm. The farm stays in her thoughts and letters throughout her trip to San Francisco and the World's Fair. Laura does not forget her responsibility to Manly and the farm. Laura and Rose, a mother-daughter team, were "super women" of the early 1900's! Reading their letters is a joy, and foretells the achievements of the future--Laura writing the Little House books, and Rose editing them. These courageous women captured the essence of life in frontier America in nine classic volumes. They were true pioneers.

(P.S. I keep these "English lessons" short so they won't get too boring! I'm interested in your thoughts, and would like to turn this into conversations rather than essays. Can't relate to Little House on the Prairie type stories? This is our history! Perhaps I yearn for simpler times. . . .)

Writer's Block

A case of dreaded "writer's block" is not what prevented me from posting earlier today. I've been gone the whole day, with only a few minutes to start a post (to then be finished after 10 pm). However, I've wondered what I'll do when writer's block does strike. What's the best advice to follow when ideas and words are few and far between? In West from Home, Laura's daughter, Rose, a journalist for the San Francisco Bulletin, writes to her mother to persuade her to make the trip west to San Francisco. She suggests that the trip will be good specifically for Laura's writing:

"I think that by getting away from it all for awhile, and playing around with a bunch of people who are writing and drawing and otherwise being near-artists, you will get an entirely new viewpoint on things there, and be able to see a lot of new things to write when you go back."
~West From Home, Rose and Laura Ingalls Wilder

So you have Laura's daughter, also a writer, encouraging her mother to take the trip west to San Francisco in order to aid her writing career. Two points are important here, the change in scenery and experiences, and being with other creative people. This is nothing radical, but it's well expressed, and the trip did seem to ignite Laura's creativity, almost instantly, as she wrote many letters, full of detail, which are still brimming with vitality today. And, of course, Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote the Little House series of books in the years that followed her trip!

How do you nurture your creative muse? (Why aren't you commenting--got writer's block?)

Laura's Letters

Laura Ingalls Wilder promises to be her husband's eyes as she rides the train from Missouri to San Francisco in 1915 to visit with her daughter, Rose, and attend the great World's Fair, called the Panama-Pacific Exposition (to celebrate the completion of the canal through Panama). Her words, written with a soft pencil on plain paper, paint a picture for us as well. An extremely prolific letter writer, she describes everything to Manly in great detail, and even writes letters to him while on the train! After arriving in San Francisco Laura rests, then sees the Pacific Ocean for the first time:

"At Land's End I had my first view of the Pacific Ocean. To say it is beautiful does not express it. It is simply beyond words. The water is such a deep wonderful blue and the sound of the waves breaking on the beach and their whisper as they flow back is something to dream about."
~West From Home, Laura Ingalls Wilder

And, after wading:

"The salt water tingled my feet and made them feel so good all the rest of the day, and just think, the same water that bathes the shores of China and Japan came clear across the ocean and bathed my feet. In other words, I have washed my feet in the Pacific Ocean."
~West From Home, Laura Ingalls Wilder

Laura's very impressed by San Francisco and the abundance of beauty she finds everywhere, described in West From Home.  She even says it's almost too much for her!  Her husband did not travel with her because the farm needed tending, but Laura shares her adventures with Manly and with us through her descriptive letters.   She was a gifted writer and an incidental historian.

West From Home

Today I finished The Catcher in the Rye! I could then begin West from Home with a clear conscience (one book at a time). Like Holden in The Catcher in the Rye, who yearns for a more innocent world, I'm somewhat relieved to now read about a world more innocent and promising. Don't get me wrong, The Catcher in the Rye is an incredible book--it's boundless honesty is very engaging--but I'm eager for something more uplifting.

I spent nearly an hour outside with West From Home, something I can't normally do during the week but today I was very lucky. It was great to sit out in the sun. Even though I had a small basal cell skin cancer removed almost two years ago, I'm no solar-phobe. I still believe that some sun is beneficial for Vitamin D production (and who knows what else). With my hat and sunglasses on I sat out in a sunny spot with my book and it was so pleasant! By the fragrant orange tree is my favorite place to sit, but unfortunately the bees agree with me, so I had to move away a bit.

West From Home is a compilation of the letters that author Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote to her journalist daughter, Rose, and to Laura's husband, Almanzo, affectionately called, "Manly". Rose's letters to her mom, who's called "Bessie" and "Mama Bess", are also part of this collection.