Standing at the edge of the wood
- cherylmurfin
- 3 hours ago
- 8 min read
By Cheryl Murfin
People as me how I "story find" while I'm walking? How do I write and walk at the same time? Or, even when I'm not walking to write, how do I start any piece of writing when I feel stuck or worried I won't get it right?
First, let me tell you, while I am not a complete luddite, I am not a huge fan of technology (she says as she blogs from her self-built website, on her expensive computer). But some technologies are better than others when it comes to writing. Here I allude to the "Voice Memo" or "Notes" apps on my iPhone (most smart phones have similar recorders). It has become a central tool in my writing process.
Before I head out on a hike, I make sure my phone battery is fully charged and that I have a backup battery. I turn off my screen saver so I am never shut out of my phone while recording a voice memo. Then, as I walk, I tell myself a story and let the phone record. I start the story with something I see on the path. In the story below, it was an old stone cottage being reclaimed by nature. My first thought upon seeing the home was of a mother and daughter in long skirts occupying it.
And then I keep talking, keep telling, adding in details that I see in front of me—the edge of a wood behind a farm, a passerby in a woolen coat. I talk to myself until it feels done. And then I let it sit for at least a day. Better is a week or even a month.
If I use the Voice Memos app, I then download the memo recording and upload it to the Otter transcription app (HINT: You can also speak right into Otter, skipping the Voice Memos go-between. I'm just a creature of habit).
After downloading and translating, I see what I have. I return to the story, add, edit, complete. Another part of me released.
If you think you are not a writer, if you are a writer who feels blocked, or if you have memories you want to pass down or simply hold onto, tell yourself the story. As you were speaking to a friend in a long, deep conversation, without judgement, without the need to get it "right." Just tell yourself the story. Into that tiny mic on your phone. Wait. Return to it later. Write what you told that friend in yourself.
Writing from the road
Standing at the edge of the wood
By Cheryl Murfin
Margaret Holley never got over the war.
Like a dutiful wife, she waited for three years for her husband, James, to come back as he had promised. And in those years, she and her daughter Annie grew together like two trunks of an oak and like the blue and yellow crossweave of the family tartan.
That is all to say the two were inseparable and also separated. Margaret was the wild, dark Scot from the Northern Highlands in her husband's village. She was considered a storm that would bring chaos to their ordered, simple life. Annie, belonging to James Holley, was one of them, no matter how much she resembled her mother in form and idiosyncrasies.
None of this was spoken, of course. When Margaret felt ill with dysentery after eating an uncured shank of lamb, the village women brought tinctures and soups and nursed her back to health. Outside and beyond hearing, however, they made it clear. It was only for the child.
And so, Margaret sat through the winter cold and alone, despite being warm and full. And yet, Annie's laughter, her sweetness, her open, loving arms took the frost off her mother's loneliness.
In the mornings, the two snuggled together under heavy winter down and dry wool coats. They had a ritual of lighting the fire. Margaret would build the logs and stuff the paper. She taught Annie to rub the stones to make the spark. "Bring the fairy to light," she'd say, and Annie would rub with all the might that a four-year-old could muster, always with a giggle of delight when the light arrived.
So it went until spring came and the husbands came marching home.
Oh, there was a grand celebration. The wives waved their linens and threw them down before the arriving soldiers, a promise of home and hearth and tender care. Margaret watched as Soiban embraced her Aaron. And as Cleona fell into the arms of her Aidan. And even as the cranky, swollen Magda stood, arms crossed, until her husband, Ian, stood in front of her, she said, "It's about time you're home." And when Ian threw his arms around Magda and swung her in a circle of joy.
Twenty men marched home to the village that day. But none of them was James. Margaret stood in front of her house with her linen across your arm waiting. And so it was the next day and the next and the next. While she waited, she never stopped her tender care of Annie. She was sure that her husband would soon be home. She didn't want to dampen Annie's joyful expectation, to burden the girl with her own worry. How could she explain if her father did not come home?
A month later, the captain of her husband's regiment came to her door. He did not need to knock, but she was there by the window, holding her hope as she had each of the past 30 days.
"I'm so sorry, Margaret," the captain said. "James was a hero and a mighty fighter. He has done his heart and our country proud.?
"And, so, where is he, then?" Margaret was tart, both feet planted on the threshold.
"He was buried in the field of battle at Buccleuch," said the captain. "He is holding the drawing of you both and will carry you into the heavens."
"He shall not be carrying anything to heaven," said Margaret. "My James shall be coming home."
She left sweet Annie in the care of Soiban and mounted her pony to follow the captain to the battlefield. Once there, soldiers dug up James's body, placed it in a simple wooden box on a wagon, which Margaret attached to her pony. She switched him and headed back to the village.
The village gathered for the funeral march, weeping all the way from the village center to the cemetery three miles away. They had lost one of their own, and the grief was sonorous.
Margaret, however, kept her happy face. She wanted Annie to feel that this was just a part of life and not to fall into sorrow. She and Annie danced all the way to the graveyard, and as the priest said his gloomy words, Margaret danced around the grave site, tossing flowers and James' most loved sweets into the grave. Annie wore her favorite dress and danced a Scottish jig.
They went home hand-in-hand, Margaret carrying her crushing grief inside, and Annie, wondering at the change in the universe which she could feel in the air and through her mother's fingers clapped over her own.
And so they continued through the winter into the spring, welcoming the summer all over, while pieces of Margaret's heart were sheared away, one by one. She took her husband's belongings and burned them over the months, letting him go of a little bit more of both of him and herself with each stocking and pant leg.
When winter returned, sweet Annie turned five years old, and to make up for her absent father, the village stood up and celebrated. All the women made their favorite cakes, and because music was beloved to Annie, they brought in a fiddler, a drummer, and a flutist from two villages over. Annie's happiness was clear and bright that day, and Margaret reminded herself that it was possible to go on living.
That year, the winter came in fierce and hunting. Margaret and Annie pulled out the woolens, restuffed the Eiderdowns, stacked the wood in the shed for the fire, and settled in for a time of quiet.
It was that year that Margaret realized her daughter's unusual sense: Annie could hear the house, the horse, and the forest speaking to her. She could hear the stories that they told. Their early winter evenings were spent with hot stew and the tales of the world around them. Of course, Margaret counted the blessings of her life, this child still by her side. Despite her endless grief, she knew she would do whatever she must to ensure Annie's safety and happiness.
All of this is to say, it did not seem unnatural, although it was unusual, when Annie started to tell the tales of her father. Margaret wondered how she could even remember James. She was so young when.
But Annie told Margaret that she could see her father roaming in the winter forest behind their house. She was adamant. She could hear him singing her favorite lullaby and calling to the sheep. Rather than take away her child's story, Margaret considered it a gift to see her husband in her life again through her child's eyes. She felt as close to and protected by her husband and her daughter as safe and loved as she had ever felt in her life. She was grateful to the god and to the goddess for their mysteries, and she lit a candle every night in the window in thanks.
Lifted in this bubble of love, Margaret did not notice when the illness came, sneaking in like a shadow in the night and hovering over Annie's bed. She did not hear it in Annie's first, late-night cough.
It must be the cold air she's bringing into her lungs, thought Margaret. She prepared lanolin and eucalyptus and rubbed it on her daughter's chest. She was not at all prepared when she finally called the herbal woman. The midwife shook Margaret: "Why did you not call me sooner? There is no more work to be done here. All that is left is to keep her comfortable and help her cross over."
All the while, Annie told stories of her father, of his battles, of his tender care of animals. She sang them out in her delirium, she whispered them as the sun rose. She reached for her mother's hand and placed it on her heart.
Until one night, her lips nearly blue and her pulse weak: "He is here," she told Margaret. "He is right here."
That night, Margaret sat by Annie's bedside, determined to keep vigil and help her cross over. Not into death—she was determined that the herbal woman was wrong—but into a new and restored life, healed of the illness. Then they would celebrate, with singing and all of Annie's favorite foods.
The shock of Annie's death was more than Margaret could hold. In her wailing, she begged the goddess and gods to bring her back. She demanded, she raised her angry fists, she prayed. And when the undertaker came to take Annie away, Margaret screamed at him for stealing her baby.
Over the next many weeks, Margaret turned inward, sitting by the fire, telling stories about the woods, the animals, and the gods and goddesses who lived all around. She got thinner and thinner, despite the villagers' attempts to get her to eat. And then one day she saw him in the forest behind the house, and she began to tell herself the story.
Her husband was out hunting and would bring home three pheasants for her to cook, and on the horse behind him was sweet Annie, calling out all the animals she could see from high up in the saddle. Margaret watched from the window as James and Annie got closer, laughing and chatting. Full of joy.
Their faces were bright, aglow with an inner light, despite the snow and gloom outside. Father and daughter stopped at the edge of the woods across the pasture and waited as the snow drifted down all around them. They waved to Margaret, both hands overhead, with excitement.
Margaret left her seat by the window. She didn't even pause to put out the fire in the heart or pull on her boots.
She walked across the snow in her bare feet to embrace them.
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