The World Has Changed (49 page)

 

A.W.: I love creating characters! Because, like our children, they really create themselves. We get to sit back and watch something astonishing come into being that we had something to do with, but not everything. It’s magical. Naming characters is also. For some books, I try to keep alive names I heard as a child, the names of friends, relatives, family. People I loved or whose names struck me as poetic in some way. I
did this in
The Color Purple
as a way to honor family who would have no way of being remembered or honored otherwise. It amused me too to mix up the names so that sometimes a character (based on a real person) is mistreating his wife, who has the name of the real person’s mother or daughter. I suppose this is a way I, posthumously for these people, attempt to teach them about each other. And to urge kindness. Similarly, Grange Copeland is not only named for the land itself—the grange—but also for the landowner, “Copeland,” who owned land my family lived on when I was a child. The connection between land, farmer, and landowner, is very strong, but to my knowledge it is rarely deliberately intertwined in literature. Mem Copeland’s name comes from the French
la meme
, which means “the same.” This was a signal to readers about the prevalence of domestic violence before it had a name. As a student in college, I adored French and lived in the French House on campus.

Writing
The Temple of My Familiar
was an absorbing joy; creating the many carefully considered names in it made it more so. Dickens loved naming his characters. A companion and I enjoy watching Dickens on DVD and just finished watching
Bleak House
. Fantastic names! Lady Dedlock, Mr. Guppy, Mr. Smallweed. Each of them funny and perfect. I think naming characters is a way we writers play with our work, amuse ourselves as we go over a paragraph or chapter the umpteenth time.

R.B.: In an earlier period in your career, you stated that your preoccupations as a writer centered on two overlapping areas: “I am preoccupied with the spiritual survival, the survival
whole
of my people. But beyond that, I am committed to exploring the oppressions, the insanities, the loyalties, and the triumphs of black women.” What are your preoccupations at this stage in your life as a writer?

 

A.W.: What could it be but to be of assistance to the world in its dire hour of need? We’ve turned a scary corner, as humans. We may have ruined our nest. If I write about Palestinians being deprived of water and land, of Aung San Suu Kyi and the precious instruction she is capable of giving us—not only about democracy but also about morality—if I write about violence and war, collards and chickens, I can connect with others who care about these things. Hopefully, together we can move the discussion of
survival, with grace and justice and dignity, forward. We will need to know many different kinds of things to survive as a species worth surviving.

R.B.: In 1976, you and your friend and fellow writer the late June Jordan established the Sisterhood. Could you recall the origins of this group? How often did you meet? Were the meetings structured in a particular way? Did you imagine at the time that the writers of the Sisterhood—June Jordan, Toni Morrison, Ntozake Shange—would have such a deep and wide impact upon American and world literature?

 

A.W.: June and I were rebels of the first order against ranking of any kind imposed from beyond ourselves. We thought we must create a space for black women writers to honor each other, to know each other, so that nothing from outside could make us fight over anything. Or even feel competitive. This was the Sisterhood’s purpose. We met only a few times while I was still in New York. I moved to California, and later so did June. My connection with women’s circles continued. I have been a member of an African American women’s sangha for ten years and was part of a racially diverse Women’s Council (now on break) for about seven years. Circles are crucial for human advancement in the time we are now in. In a safe place, where people can express their sorrows and fears without worry, we can shift the world’s thinking, as these circles, millions of them, join together to usher in solid and useful thought that has emerged in the patience and safety of our homes.

R.B.: In
In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens
, you provide us with your widely cited definition of womanism, which has led to the creation of new fields of study in literature, religion, and black feminism. The final definition reads: “Womanist is to feminist as purple to lavender.” In this formulation, you suggest that womanism is more radical than feminism. What is your current thinking on womanism and its relationship to feminism?

 

A.W.: As long as the world is dominated by racial ideology that places whites above people of color, the angle of vision of the womanist, coming from a culture of color, will be of a deeper, more radical penetration. This is only logical. Generally speaking, for instance, white feminists are
dealing with the oppression they receive from white men, while women of color are oppressed by men of color as well as white men, as well as by many white women. But on the joyful side, which we must insist on honoring, the womanist is, like the creator of the word, intent on connecting with the earth and cosmos, with dance and song. With roundness. With thankfulness and joy. Given a fighting chance at living her own life, under oppression that she resists, the womanist has no or few complaints. Her history has been so rough—captured from her home, centuries of enslavement, apartheid, etc.—she honors Harriet Tubman by daily choosing freedom over the fetters of any internalized slavery she might find still lurking within herself. Whatever women’s liberation is called, it is about freedom. This she knows. Having said this, I have no problem being called “feminist” or “womanist.” In coining the term, I was simply trying myself to see more clearly what sets women of color apart in the rainbow that is a world movement of women who’ve had enough of being second- and third-class citizens of the earth. One day, if earth and our species survive, we will again be called sacred and free. Our proper names.

R.B.: As you argue in
We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For
, we live in a world that is increasingly interdependent, and also a world in which fragmentation and isolation remain predominant. What are the practices that have been most helpful to you in maintaining a sense of purpose and balance in this changing world?

 

A.W.: Meditation has been a mainstay in my life. It has helped me more than I could have imagined prior to learning how to meditate. I don’t meditate the same way I did earlier in my life, when the pressure to write, to mother, to travel, to be an activist, and to pay the bills was intense. Now I just live more meditatively, and it is very helpful that, understanding my nature and its needs for flourishing, I’ve created retreat spaces that help me keep my sanity and, quite often, my serenity. I discovered Mexico while I was pregnant with my daughter; we went there during my second trimester. I loved it and have gone there to rest in the sweetness of the Mexican people, in the kindness and courtesy of friends, every year for over twenty-five years. I also fell in love years ago with a Hawaiian musician who had the most delightful house on a beach in Molokai. The relationship ended, but we share the house still. I can go there when I’m
dragging in spirit and sit and look at the moonlight on the water until I know all is well. That whether this small being is at peace or not, the tides will still do their thing: rise and fall and bring some boats to shore and refuse to let others land. With a complete and splendid indifference.

R.B.: In 2008, you launched your official Web site. What motivated you to establish a Web site? As an electronic medium, how does it serve your interests as a writer?

 

A.W.: I never thought I’d have a Web site. But once I realized I was finished with writing as I had always done it before—write a book, wait a year, publish the book, go on tour; by then you’ve almost forgotten why you wrote the book, etc.—I considered the Web site idea that one of my young friends in Mendocino, the painter Shiloh McCloud, had suggested. She would help me set it up, and then I could write from anywhere, since Anywhere seemed where I was headed. It has worked out well, I think. And blogging (I used to think the very word repulsive, I think I thought it sounded like snot or something) turns out to suit me. I’m Aquarian, and this is our age, and our element is air. We like electricity; our favorite color, next to the amethyst of our birthstone, is electric blue. The sky. I also like writing and charging nothing for it. I will do this as long as I can afford it. I’m very into my sense of being like anything else in nature that has not yet been captured by Monsanto: just dropping my seeds, my fruit, my nuts, and my leaves, because that’s what this being does. I love the immediacy of it also. It is instantaneous. A marvel.

For a year, I didn’t permit my administrator to show me one comment. Do trees want comments? But now I will sometimes view and share a comment. The ones that are rude or crude I never see; it wouldn’t help me. It would be like telling a walnut to be an apple.

R.B.: After almost four years of dialogue that began in January 2004, you appointed Emory University as the custodian of your archive in December 2007. Your archive opened to the public and to researchers in April 2009. What were some of the reasons that led to your decision to appoint Emory University as the custodian of your archive? How has your life changed since you made this very important decision?

 

A.W.: Emory is in the South, in Georgia, where I am from. You are there, a friend. There are others close to Emory who make me feel welcome. The Dalai Lama sometimes teaches there, and others who care deeply about us humans. My life has changed because of this decision. I feel free of the forty-odd years of history—in the form of papers and memorabilia—I had been keeping in my house! Ironically, I left boxes of personal journals at Emory thinking I would come there to work on them, but instead I seem to be writing forward rather than backward. This is a surprise to me, but I’m enjoying it. Perhaps I will one day come back to Emory and go through the journals and write a memoir or two, but maybe not.

R.B.: You are an admirer of Carl Jung. We can see the imprint of Jung’s psychological system in your novel
Possessing the Secret of Joy
. You joined Jungians and other writers in New York City to offer commentary on
The Red Book
, Jung’s recently published record of his dream life spanning more than four decades. What were some of the revelations of
The Red Book
for you?

 

A.W.: That it is exquisite! This is what the soul needs from us; that we investigate it using all of our tools created out of beauty. And out of dreams. Jung was not stingy about giving his spirit and soul what it needed to fully expand. He was not afraid of himself, a lucky reality. So many people are afraid of themselves, as if they were, to themselves, completely unknown quantities, and of course some folks may be. But part of our work as humans, if we wish to live in peace on earth and not project our fears and errors onto others, is to get to know who we are. The drawings are lovely and patiently exacted; the paintings are vibrant and intense. I have always felt with Jung, since first reading his work, that he is a kindred spirit. That is why I incorporated him as a character in
Possessing the Secret of Joy
.

R.B.: You have just completed the audio recording of
The Color Purple
. It will be wonderful for readers to hear your voice as they read or listen to the most celebrated novel in your corpus, and unquestionably one of the most important novels written in the twentieth century. What was it
like to engage the written word in this manner? You have stated that you felt supported by the ancestors in the writing of a novel that possesses elements of family history. Did you feel supported by the ancestors as you translated their stories into this new medium?

 

A.W.: I did this recording with one of the worst colds I’ve had in my life! Ever so much coughing and sneezing. But, having waited twenty-five years to record
The Color Purple
, I was not willing to wait until I was better. The people in the book: ancestors, characters, spirits, whatever I’ve called them at different times, came through wonderfully. They are people who show up! And hold up! It was truly magical. I worked for four hours a day for four days and they were as present as when they first appeared to me in the early 1980s.

R.B.: How did you come to decide to raise chickens at your country home in California? Aside from fresh eggs, what are the benefits that have come to you from reconnecting with nature and your rural Georgia background in this way?

 

A.W.: With Proust, who lived in Paris, it was the madeleine cookie that carried him back to
Remembrance of Things Past
. With me, with my rural background in Georgia, it’s chickens. As I write about my chickens frequently on my blog, I find myself being led into a part of my memory that was suppressed when, as a child, I was injured. Like most children with injuries, I was so intensely involved with the change I had experienced—and continued to experience in the way other people now responded to me—that my mind couldn’t pay attention to anything else. Years of my memory were erased or, rather, submerged. On a visit to Bali, in my forties, I was strolling along a dirt road in Ubud, and a hen and her chicks appeared in front of me; for no reason that I then understood, I was transfixed by this sight. Years later, I realize they were grace-launched messengers with ties to the unconscious sent to awaken me to the possibility of regaining some of what I had lost: my memory of many, many years of my childhood that I had completely forgotten.