I have been thinking about why it is so difficult to write about an experience when it’s fresh. At least, for me, it’s very difficult. While I was traveling, and seeing these amazing and often ancient sights, I kept thinking that I needed to write about the experience while it was still fresh. I should know better by now. I can rarely write about something while I am experiencing it or even when it is in the recent past. I need to drop all the experiences into a type of brain stew that simmers, often for quite a while, before it can turn into anything tasty. And the simmering process goes on without much conscious thought; it’s the pot bubbling on the back of the stove.
Today, reading an interview with Clyde Edgerton, in Image, I came across this quote: “For me that’s what fiction writing is about in the main: translating, rather than inventing, though plenty of inventing is involved.” Immediately I identified with the words. Experiences, people, places, all need to be translated and translation takes internal time. In the process of translation I begin to find the meaning in the experience, as the words get written on the paper or on the computer screen. So, over the next few months, some of the places, people and experiences of the Dolomites and Alps will undoubtedly work their way into my writing. For now, they continue to simmer.
If you’re not familiar with Image Journal go to:http://www.imagejournal.org/current/
