On the road 2/14-2/23

Book tour blogs often whine: the delayed airplanes, the small turnout, the moving from city to city at speed not meant for a human soul. But that's just part of it. Here's my last week: took the train from New York to DC last Wednesday to speak at the National Cathedral. (That's the big church on the hill, the one that seats something like 4,000--did you see President Ford's funeral?). Previous day was horrible winter storm (I had not experienced sleet before, having grown up in the west. I called Vincent to say that it was ice falling from the sky). Many Knopf authors unable to get off the ground at JFK for gigs in LA. DC a sheet of ice when I arrived. Smaller turnout than expected (no shit, Sherlock--one woman told me the next day that she couldn't get out her back door because the snow was so deep and had to toss her dog out the window.) But such a fine crowd, with great comments and questions about Hiroshima and the decision to use the bomb. A woman there who grew up in Oak Ridge, the "other" secret city besides Los Alamos.
Bookseller: Cathedral Bookstore (beautiful displays by Gabby.)
Taught writing workshop the next day for 60 women as part of Sacred Circles, a gathering of women now in its tenth year at the Cathedral. Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela (A Human Being Died that Night) gave talk the next day on the Forgiveness and South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Read her book.
But the real subject of this blog is the men who have been driving me around, in taxis and in limos. In DC, most of the taxi drivers were from the Middle East and all of them had the radio tuned to NPR’s coverage of the hearings in the Senate about Iraq. A man from Turkey, in his forties, fine featured said he could no longer say to his family and friends at home that the United States believed in democracy because they just laughed. He added that he was now afraid here, that he might be picked up, just because of his looks or accent, and not charged and not allowed out of prison. The other taxi drivers were from Pakistan and Ethiopia.
Left DC on Sunday morning for Asheville, NC where I was met at the airport by Emilie White who heads the Kay Fowler Literary Project at All Soul Cathedral (Episcopal) in Asheville. Emilie is a thoughtful reader and writer and she brings writers into the cathedral to read and talk. Great crowd, almost filled the church, and very fine questions. Bishop of W. North Carolina, Porter Taylor, is also a fine writer and serious reader, so it’s a literate place. I was again struck by the story-telling, literate culture of the South. So many people elsewhere in the country completely miss this. And its sophistication about Christianity. So many of us from the North or We have a one-note view of the South and Christianity (read: right wing fundamentalist) but it is, as Flannery O’Connor said, “a Christ-haunted land,” and the folks I meet, in the liberal-left, are very well educated and highly nuanced when it comes to Christianity.
Bookseller: Accent on Books.
Back to New York on Monday afternoon. Dinner early with buddy at Bright Food Cafe on 8th, fell into bed. Day of dry cleaning, laundry, catching up on email, gym. New York warming up. Slush in street. Dogs still with boots on.
Wednesday morning to Chicago. Driver was a man from Sudan, Darfur. Travels extensively to alert world to genocide. Was recently in Chad were he heard stories, he said, that made him “turn away.” If American President would condemn the murder, it would end.
Briefly toured The Cradle in Evanston, an adoption agency my grandmother, Eleanor Gallagher, helped to found. Many photos on the walls of parents and children, each one a gift. Most memorable” a seventy-two- year- old man with his birth mother in her nineties, just after he found her.
Spoke at Seabury Seminary in the afternoon with Gary Hall, dean of the school, man who reads everything and writes beautifully. Kathy Hall reads everything, too, and runs the most hospitable household. Students and I talked about being bored in church (taboo word) and what to do. Preached at Ash Wednesday service on “rewriting our stories during Lent.” (Will post on Web site: noragallagher.org) Read later in the evening. I think Seabury must have been thoroughly sick of hearing from me by end of day.
Bookseller: Seabury bookstore
Next day to Lake Forest for bookstore lunch. Sue Boucher, who owns Lake Forest Bookstore, gathers women with an author. Very smart idea. Great group of thoughtful women. Hannah Gretz, local powerhouse, had gathered up a bunch of friends and brought them. Hannah has five children, sits on the board of Ragdale artists colony (director of Ragdale was there), and lives in beautiful renovated house with gorgeous long windows everywhere. After lunch, she took me on small tour. Both of my parents grew up in the area.