Culture Just Beyond My Backyard

Given the fact that I was 5 months pregnant with my youngest son when we moved to this home on family farmland outside of Indianapolis, I really haven't had many opportunities to travel into Indianapolis. We've gone to the Indiana State Fair, the Indianapolis Zoo, and the Indianapolis Children's Museum for years because we always vacationed in this house every August. We even ventured to Noblesville, back when ES was a toddler in an intense train-love phase.

Apart from those visits, the trips to Riley Children's Hospital for pulmonologist appointments, and one theater performance at the IRT with my reluctant ES as my date, I really haven't ventured into Indianapolis on my own. Now, I am deep in the throes of wanderlust.

My name, Wendy, means "the wanderer." My parents named me well. I love to travel and experience different things. These past few years, I have felt like I have been trapped in a cage (a cage with a stunning view, but a cage nonetheless). The duties of parenting my small children have kept me close to the home front, unable to wander much.

The other night, I had the tiniest taste of the culture just beyond my backyard - o.k., a ways beyond my backyard - and I am thirsting for more. I read in the paper about a writing series being offered at the Indianapolis Art Center. The fact that the lecture was free was the real clincher for me and I'm sure my husband could hardly deny my request to attend. The Clowes Lecture Series began Monday night with a session entitled, "No Rules, No Map," by David Shumate (Marion College's poet-in-residence).

My husband's normal routine on a Monday evening includes exercising between 5:30 and 7 p.m. I didn't wish to infringe upon this, so I informed ES that he would be responsible for the little boys from 6 to 7 p.m. Of course, he had plans as well (more fort fun back in the woods, despite the recent rainy weather), but he and his friend dutifully returned by 6. As I drove out of town, I dropped ES's friend off at his home.

The directions weren't challenging at all. We have driven along Indianapolis' 38th Street before. However, I was completely unprepared for what I found when I turned left off of 38th Street and onto North Meridian.

I am always a bit leery when driving down 38th, because the neighborhood is fairly dangerous. Several years ago, we almost cancelled our annual trip to the State Fair because there had been so many murders down in that area. Houses are boarded up or burned out. Local businesses sport bars on their windows. Destitute individuals hold signs begging for money.

Within one block of turning that corner, I entered the North Meridian Street Historic District. It certainly is "One of America's Great Streets." The homes on this street were awe-inspiring. I had a hard time driving because I wanted so badly to stop and stare. Even though I would never want to live in one of these homes, I am still grateful that this architectural magnificence has been preserved. How they have remained so pristine and beautiful, merely blocks away from slums, is a mystery to me.

You really must take a look at these homes yourself. I tried to bring up a web-page from the Indiana government, revealing the historic background, but that site was temporarily unavailable. However, if you visit the Meridian Street Foundation site you can actually click on the right hand corner for a video tour of these incredible homes.

I know there will be future visits to this street. There's no way in the world, I'm keeping this a secret from my big and little men. Plus, I intend to do more research before we explore this area in depth.

It feels like the first day of school. Here I have sat in this little farm town, unaware of the splendours of culture awaiting in Indianapolis. Who cares that it takes 40 minutes to get there, I've found a new world to explore and it still feels like it is close to my backyard.

The lecture was held in the library of the Indianapolis Art Center (which, I discovered, offers free admission). David Shumate was unassuming and funny. I truly expected there to be more people in attendance. I even wondered if my fellow blogger, Catherine, would be there - alas, she wasn't, unless she came incognito. He encouraged the small handful of us to write intuitively, from the heart rather than the head.

I appreciated his quote from William Faulkner, describing what makes great literature enduring, saying that "it always deals with the human heart in conflict with itself." My heart seems to always be in conflict with itself, so I must at least have the experience to write, even if I lack the expertise.

Of course, some of his insights were obvious mandates to the writer. He emphasized the importance of being attentive to everything around you. He encouraged relentless reduction, removing anything extraneous to what has to be said.

Still, many of the images he evoked were helpful for rethinking about the process of creation in writing. He likened writing to "diving into silence, to stir up the pool of language." He compared imagination to walking into a closet and trying on someone else's clothes. Rather than feel the paralysis of a blank page, he suggested thinking of a blank page as a long-lost lover ... someone who knows all your secrets, therefore, you must be fully honest.

Another paradox of the practice of writing was touched on when he said, "You must be enthusiastic about writing a bad poem [piece] - perfect the art of messing around." This was very freeing for me. At the beginning of this year, I began to notice several bloggers whose posts are always polished essays. As much as I long for that in my blog, I feel the constraints of time. Plus, I am pulled by a simpler desire of writing tidbits merely to keep family and friends aware of what is going on in our lives. If time were much more at my own disposal, I would write two blogs; one for information and newsy events and one for polished reflections about life and literature. For now, I stumble along, using this blog as a way to keep myself in regular practice of the art of expressing myself through writing.

On the flip side of the bad piece, David Shumate encouraged writers to consider silence as the standard, the most sacred. Therefore, we should make sure that our words are more valuable than the silence. He advised to "settle for nothing short of the essential."

I was really grateful to have had this chance to venture into Indianapolis on my own for some encouragement in my writing (oh, how I miss my former writer's group in IL). Moreover, the evening provided an extra snippet of entertainment. It seems I determined to bring a bit of the country along with me as I ventured into the city.

As I was listening to the lecture, I noticed some slight movement on my arm. I looked down to find a small bug crawling on my shirt sleeve. I quickly held my arm out a bit and attempted to flick it to the ground. Alas, instead of landing on the ground, the bug landed on the coat sleeve of the woman in front of me. I decided I really couldn't allow the thing to crawl onto this woman either, so I took my small notebook and attempted to scrape it off of her coat. The thing was as stubborn as could be and as I sized it up again, I realized it was a tick! It was determined to cling to her coat and I was even more determined to extract it. I finally managed to get it into my notebook, but then didn't wish to squash it into my words. I shook it off onto the ground and tried to step on it.

Of course, through this whole comical detour, I worried I would disrupt the lecture. When I looked down a few moments later, the tick was gone. I was grateful to be rid of it, but did mention the tick encounter to my ES and husband.

In the time since Monday night, we have found two more ticks on myself and my son. I think we are going to have to address this problem, since there's no way in the world that my son will want to give up trips to his fort (he even informed me this evening, that they have placed an old door at the entrance and found chains and a lock in the old shed, which they used to keep anyone else out of their fort).

Next time I venture out for a bit of culture (I think the lecture series will be offered monthly through October), I will certainly try not to bring tiny creatures from my own backyard. Especially, since these are probably deer ticks and who knows if they could be carrying Lyme disease. Then again, I bet those ticks follow "no rules and no maps," as well.