Everyone needs a quiet, safe place to run to, a sanctuary of
memory and dreams, and for me that means Muskoka. Situated about
an hour due north of Toronto, the area is chiefly represented
by an interconnected system of three large glacial lakes continuing
north: Lake Muskoka, Lake Rosseau, and Lake Joseph. Since Muskoka
was the lake connected to the railhead at Gravenhurst, it was
the first lake to be heavily settled. Once they put in the roads,
of course, settlement happened to Rosseau and Lake Joe.
Trying to explain why I love Muskoka is a little like trying
to explain how to breathe. For me, it’s an autonomous reflex.
I love it so much, and I know it so well, that when I’m
there it’s like walking around in a dream. I don’t
even need to use my eyes to see; I have the ground memorized.
My feet know where to sidestep each knotted pine root and broken
fang of surprisingly pink Precambrian granite. My toes know where
to step to avoid the tricky wiggling paving stone or the one
bad splintery board that needs to be replaced in the dock. A
few years back I was asked to paint a mural of the lake from
the vantage point of a friend’s front deck, and I reproduced
it so exactly right from memory that I even got the individual
trees.
If you’re a writer, I hope you have a place like this.
If not, you need to find one. Virginia Wolfe was right; we each
need a room of one’s own. My room is Muskoka.
Part of the reason I run to Muskoka is because I’ve been
coming here for so long the place has continuity. I can remember
sitting on the front porch eight years old with my grandparents’ generation
and having a great-uncle ask me what I wanted to be when I grew
up. I said a writer. Everyone chuckled politely and went back
to their drinks, except my grandfather. He smiled because he
knew. And here I am, typing away on my wireless Mac, in the same
cottage, doing exactly that. I carved my initials in the bench
I’m sitting on the day Richard Nixon resigned his presidency.
Returning to the same place year after year, reconnecting with
the same friends and seeing the panoply of generations defines
the very concept of learning how to structure a coherent, linear
plot.
And it’s not just about writing. The woods up here are
loaded with potters, painters in oils and watercolors, jewelers,
weavers and spinners; pick up a local paper and the ads are full
of them. And the amateurs enjoy their turn, too; whether it’s
needlepointing a pillow, sketching a landscape, or constructing
a family fun swim trophy out of scrap aluminum foil and coffee
cans. Being on the lake strips away the mundane busy-ness of
our workaday lives and allows us to fill our time with creative
play, and that’s the best outlet for artistic endeavor
I can think of. Of course, the really smart, really creative
ones have figured out how to do it full-time. I’m not there
yet, but I am still trying.
Additionally, at the lake we enjoy the luxury of free time; time
spent quietly reading other thoughts without interruption. All
the best conversations happen at the cottage, between long-time
friends, late at night in the kitchen over covert cigarettes.
Honest, emotional exchanges that simply get short-circuited in
other, busier locations. I think that is why lake friendships
withstand the test of time; because the people you meet and love
here see the real you, and like you they are stripped down to
their innermost, best version, without pretense or sham. Who
has time for make-up? Let’s go swimming! Perhaps in the
end, when all is said and done and lived and experienced, you
don’t even really like them anymore, but you do understand
them.
The scary part of writing in Muskoka is getting back in touch
with honesty. On holiday, I have the time to clear my head and
to think deeply, to explore my innermost feelings, and those
feelings include doubt. But when I’m at the lake, whenever
I begin to question the validity of my latest project, I look
out across the water at the granite bedrock that has been here
since the molten Earth cooled, and I tell myself to relax. Seriously,
what does my limited human effort mean against that expansive
vista of time? If I do my best, that should be enough, and when
I’m here I can test the frightening freedom and explore
the deeper thoughts that usually get lost in my day-to-day distraction;
and in that deeper thinking become the best version of the writer
I wanted to be.
As for cottage living, either you get it or you don’t.
If you’re the type of person who needs wall-to-wall carpeting
and central heat and air, if you need to blast the rock to build
a swimming pool because the lake has fish in it, if you need
a hot tub on your front deck just to survive, you probably don’t
get it. If, however, you can still recall the day the great blue
heron left in such a huff when you disturbed it that you heard
the shuffle of its’ feathers on take-off, if you can still
feel the way the warm lake breeze ruffled your hair and whispered
in your ear, if you can still smell the scent of the dock once
the dew burned off and the sun warmed the silvery boards, then
you probably belong in Muskoka, too.
From Author Martha Reed
The hardest thing about being a writer is finding the bravery to
tell the truth. Luckily, that bravery is usually linked to my twisted
sense of humor, so I manage to survive.
I came to writing late in the game basically because when I was younger
I had nothing important to say. I’ve been trying to figure it
out ever since. But I’ve always been a storyteller, and fascinated
with words. On rainy days in Ohio my mother would hand me a volume
of the encyclopedia and I entertained myself for hours. My kindergarten
teacher reported that I didn’t like playing with clay because
I knew at the end of art class I would have to clean it up; she wrote
that I preferred to gather the other children around and tell them
a story. I was six at the time. I just wish my teacher had written
down exactly what it was I felt compelled at that age to say.
Writing is the most important thing I do, and I struggle to approach
it with honesty. Right now I’m having trouble with the traditional
publishing industry because of my honesty, but I’m just not
willing to sacrifice my work to the maws of the great machine. My
sisters, who know me well, call me stubborn – I am a Taurus – but
I prefer to label it personal integrity.
My saving grace, if I have one, is that I love to travel and meet
new people, and I keep putting it out there. I’m amazed at how
many great stories complete strangers have to tell. The price of admission
is usually a quick nod and a friendly smile. “What do you mean?” I
ask, and out it comes. A story truly is the shortest distance between
two people.
So what have I written? One literary prose poem, Table for One, published
in Pearl 26; a Nantucket Mystery novel, The Nature of the Grave, which
won a 2006 Independent Publishing (IPPY) Honorable Mention for Mid-Atlantic
Best Regional Fiction. A Muskoka ghost story told with love, The Haunting
of Dalton Trimble, available in Spinetingler Magazine, and now that’s
finished, I’m off to work on my second Nantucket Mystery, The
Witch of Wauwinet.
Sample first chapters of both novels are available on my web site,
www.marthareed.com, and I invite readers to stop by and take a look.
If you like what you read, please follow the link to my Print On Demand
(POD) publisher and order a copy through their secure site; they’ll
mail it straight to your door. How easy is that?
If you’re curious why I chose to publish myself using POD technology,
and some folks are, please visit my author page at www.cozylibrary.com;
I think I’ve spelled out my reasons pretty clearly there. If
you want to contact me directly, click the email link found on my
site. I love hearing from other mystery enthusiasts, and I’ll
get back to you as soon as I can.
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