Finding a Voice

"Between the oral interview and the written manuscript is a long, meandering journey in which a narrative is crafted." (Rebecca Jones, "Blended Voices: Crafting a Narrative from Oral History Interviews" in The Oral History Review, Vol 31, No. 1, pages 23-42.)

I am on this same journey:
the genre is autobiography,
the voicing is first person (of course),
how to organize and provide connective tissue
is rather mystifying ...

On the side, I'm loading CDs onto my computer
to form a soundtrack background for my thesis
and to remind me that many stories I am finding
will make their way into songs.

I just finished loading Cate Friesen's Wayward.
Two songs are essential in the soundtrack to my project:

First, "Peggy Carpenter":
"Her name is Peggy Carpenter and I write to remember ..."
Me, too. Their names are Jean and Esther and Selma and Irene and and Myrtle Lillian (with husband Gordon) .. and I write to remember.

Next, "She Walks Lightly" is a cheerful little tune
about an elderly woman who
"walks lightly on this good earth
tends her garden well
saves her pennies up for tulip bulbs and roses
she's got stories to tell if you listen."
Listening to the stories of octagenarian women;
this is my oral history project.
Personally, I like this bit,
wondering if I'll have a similar eccentric tale to tell:
"Walls of photographs, faces faded
her friend Grace and the trip they chanced
she went to Egypt once, she had lovers, too
nobody visits now, nobody knows how she danced
all night, the jitterbug
now she walks slowly but lightly
talks to the daisies, the neighbours think she's crazy
she don't care, she's got stories."

Of course, my story's not done yet,
God's the "Good Storyline"
and it's a pretty good one so far!

As well as her own music and writing,
she hosts Cate Friesen's Roots Report on CBC radio,
interviewing other Canadian musicians.
Funny thing about the show's archives:
apparently you can search them all the way through 2008.
Time travel. Whoa.

Labels: vocation, writing