Pack the Inks!

If you need me, I'll be somewhere between the rabbit hole and the Mad Hatter's tea table.

A particular kind of excitement comes with preparing for a research trip. For me, it usually starts with deciding which notebooks to take, then the much more important question of which fountain pens deserve to come along. I have quite a collection, and choosing among them requires some serious deliberation. 

In less than two weeks, I'll be heading back to Rhinebeck, New York, for another round of research, writing, and archival exploration. I'm already making lists, considering what I hope to accomplish, and entertaining the possibility that I'll come home with more questions than answers. This has happened before. Frequently.

I have ghosts to interview, boxes to unearth, and a date with literary history.

The Call of the Archive

Some folx prefer vacations with beaches, umbrella drinks, and a determined effort to think about nothing at all. I understand the appeal. I really do. But give me a box of handwritten notes, an old manuscript, or a notebook filled with the early workings of someone's imagination, and I'm quite content. Add a good cup of tea, and I may be difficult to retrieve.

Archival research has something wonderfully intimate about it. You encounter a writer's thinking before it has been organized, edited, and presented to the world. Ideas are crossed out, reconsidered, and occasionally abandoned. A small margin note can send you down an entirely new line of inquiry. Sometimes the most revealing material is tucked between pages or scribbled in a corner, where it might easily have gone unnoticed.

I've learned that some of the most interesting discoveries are the ones I wasn't looking for. Of course, those are also the discoveries most likely to send my carefully planned research schedule straight out the window. I have become quite accomplished at following such detours.

In Good Company

One pleasure of this upcoming trip is being with fellow writers and researchers who understand this particular obsession.

Writing requires a great deal of solitude, and I'm generally quite happy with that arrangement. Still, there's something invigorating about spending time with people who are equally absorbed in their work. We can spend hours pursuing our separate projects, then gather over a pot of genmaicha tea to compare discoveries, work through a troublesome passage, or follow an unexpected connection that leads one of us to reach for another book.

These are people who understand why a handwritten note, an obscure reference, or a previously unknown detail can make your entire day. Better yet, they're likely to get just as excited as you are. Nobody needs to explain why an afternoon spent examining old papers constitutes a perfectly marvelous time.

And should one of us announce an entirely new research obsession over dinner, I suspect the response will be enthusiastic encouragement rather than a concerned suggestion to get more sleep.

Bring on the Paper Dust

I'm looking forward to the autumn air, the familiar surroundings, the conversations, and the hours spent with Rachel's words and papers. This visit will also mark an important milestone. Harvard will collect the first boxes of Rachel's papers for their new home at the Houghton Library, where her archive will be preserved for future readers and researchers. I'm especially glad to be there as Rachel's literary legacy begins its next chapter.

Even thinking about Rhinebeck brings a small quake, a tingle somewhere deep within me. I wonder how much of that comes from my family's history in the area, how much from my own experiences there, and how much from the extraordinary circumstances that have brought Rachel and Zoe into my life. I suspect I'll never be able to separate one from the others, nor am I particularly inclined to try.

I have a fairly ambitious list of things I'd like to accomplish during this visit, although experience has taught me to leave plenty of room for the unexpected. A single discovery can rearrange an entire day's plans, and I'm perfectly willing to follow wherever it leads. Within reason, of course. I do intend to eat and sleep occasionally.

Should I go missing, assume I've disappeared into a stack of papers and won't come out until someone slips a warm vegan brownie under the door.