Fantasy Life: Part I
Did you always want to know how Katherine got interested in magazines and journalism?
I bet you did! Well, wonder no more. I will tell the story now.
I was in seventh grade, having a sleepover at Anne R.’s house. Or maybe it was just the afternoon after school. I was relaxing on the top bunk of the bunk bed in her small bedroom, resting my forearms on the deliciously soft, white-and-yellow cotton quilt. I had dragged with me a copy of the Utne Reader that I’d found in the house somewhere. The subscription stamp on the magazine was made out to Anne’s older brother, Nels, who also subscribed to Z Magazine and would soon, if he hadn’t already, join the American Socialist Party.
So I opened the Utne Reader and got real engrossed in this article written by a woman who’d moved to a farm because she wanted to try to see what a more old-fashioned mode of life would be like, back before ‘exercise’ became a recreational activity and ‘work’ meant sitting on your butt somewhere all day, dealing with words and figures.
So this woman moved to a farm, and lived on it, and described her chores and her work and her deep sense of satisfaction at using not just her mind but her body too to accomplish all of the things that she needed for her own survival.
This piece affected me so powerfully that I think of it frequently, still, fifteen years later.
When I read it, I knew two things:
1) I want to be a journalist.
2) I want to be her. I want to live on a farm and work with my hands and become strong and toned and brave doing the things that I need to do for my own survival. Yes! Yes! Yes!!!
I bet you did! Well, wonder no more. I will tell the story now.
I was in seventh grade, having a sleepover at Anne R.’s house. Or maybe it was just the afternoon after school. I was relaxing on the top bunk of the bunk bed in her small bedroom, resting my forearms on the deliciously soft, white-and-yellow cotton quilt. I had dragged with me a copy of the Utne Reader that I’d found in the house somewhere. The subscription stamp on the magazine was made out to Anne’s older brother, Nels, who also subscribed to Z Magazine and would soon, if he hadn’t already, join the American Socialist Party.
So I opened the Utne Reader and got real engrossed in this article written by a woman who’d moved to a farm because she wanted to try to see what a more old-fashioned mode of life would be like, back before ‘exercise’ became a recreational activity and ‘work’ meant sitting on your butt somewhere all day, dealing with words and figures.
So this woman moved to a farm, and lived on it, and described her chores and her work and her deep sense of satisfaction at using not just her mind but her body too to accomplish all of the things that she needed for her own survival.
This piece affected me so powerfully that I think of it frequently, still, fifteen years later.
When I read it, I knew two things:
1) I want to be a journalist.
2) I want to be her. I want to live on a farm and work with my hands and become strong and toned and brave doing the things that I need to do for my own survival. Yes! Yes! Yes!!!
posted by katherine | 6:47 PM
1 Comments:
Word. (on both counts)
My own revelation happened during a semi-desperate phonecall to my mother, who was 3,000 miles away (I was in Japan at the time). She was like "did it ever occur to you that you could make money writing about science?" And despite journalism courses, and an internship, and a stint as a columnist for my school paper--well, it hadn't.
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