Two Writers in a Cabin

By W. F. Twyman, Jr.

This morning, I write from an undisclosed location in the mountains. The air is brisk and chilly outside. Creatures of the night have bid farewell for now. As is the nature of nature, the chirping of morning birds and the appearance of the sun over the towering mountain peaks in the distance beckon us to a new day, another chance to seize the moment as writers.

Suppose two writers of an artistic bent found themselves together for a few days far from Southern California. What might ensue? What might we learn about the human condition?

The morning begins with Tu Es Partout, the music of French singer Edith Piaf. The voice of Piaf lures us into a mood of harmony with the world. In a world of war, there is love and remembrance

We loved each other tenderly like we loved all lovers then one day you left me ever since I‘ve been desperate I see you everywhere in the sky I see you everywhere on the earth You are my joy and my sun My nights, my days, my clear dawns (released in 1943)

There is this idea of racial memory in the ether. Racial memory from American slavery has captured black intellectual thought. It is always Ground Hog day in America, the presumed cloak of white supremacy over all Black Americans in equal measure. An example would be the recent book titled The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates. The book is a marvelous illustration of overlaying American perception of race into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Coates perceives the American race story as universal which makes no sense at all in the context of the Middle East. Rather than explore the nuance and complexity of the conflict between Israelis and the Arab world, Coates renders the ambiguous clear, the complex simple. Jews are bad and Arabs are good. In a world of war, there is good and bad, right and wrong, black and white, Jew and Arab.

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The job of a great writer is to communicate timeless truths about the human condition. If a writer is mired in the past of American race, one’s writing will be riddled with blind spots. One will remain in a racial world that is no more. Besides my writer friend, I have encountered no black Americans in this remote and isolated mountain place. It has not mattered in the least but the numbers of blacks present matters for some. Why is the question.

After the French lyrics of Tu Es Partout were no more, my writer friend and I talked about race in America…for six hours. We talked free of dogma and slogan words. We dove into the human condition.

We talked about my redneck cousin who grew up in Midlothian. He attended one percent black schools in his Republican, bedroom neighborhood in Chesterfield County, Virginia. To the best of my knowledge, cousin has never remarked he needed more black people. In fact, I am not sure what cousin would do with more black people. Maybe, put collard greens in the bath tub/smile. That was a joke, people.

My point is some black Americans have been engaged in the larger world since first grade. They navigate the larger world as a fish navigates water.

The black is good/white is bad binary makes no sense to my cousin because of his life experiences.

I asked my cabin mate about whether my cousin had more racial wisdom than an individual who grew up in a 33 percent black public school system. Wouldn’t that person always be on the hunt in life to replicate settings and situations where there were always other black people around?

My writer friend replied the 33 percent individual was not replicating the Black Table in life. Instead, they were aware of different cliques within Black American culture. The observation there are not enough black people is simply a proxy for finding their black clique from school days. The problem is America is not 33 percent black, so this individual craves a simpatico in the real world which does not exist. The number of black people doesn’t equal 33 percent in our country writ large.

This thought made sense to me, that a 1 percent black school rendered my redneck cousin more comfortable in the real world compared to the 33 percent black experience individual.

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We then talked about past girlfriends. My cabin friend has way more experience than me in this regard. I hope he writes about lessons learned in this regard.

As for me, life has been more modest and humble. There was the Mayor’s daughter who lived in the Churchill neighborhood in Richmond. There was the Jewish Yalie at Harvard Law school. There was the “around the way” law student (Harvard College/Harvard Law School). There was the heiress from Jack and Jill, private school and Martha’s Vineyard. There was the blonde, blue-eyed and white-skinned black law student whose brother I detested. If you read this essay, brother, I still detest you. And the one who mattered for a lifetime, my wife.

Skin color never mattered to me. The person inside mattered. It also mattered that my future in-laws liked me. One doesn’t marry a wife. One marries a family.

After I shared my modest dating life as a young man, my writer friend flexed and talked about his 17 girlfriends. The podcast should be interesting.

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We talked and talked and talked some more. Former U.S. Senator Edward W. Brooke III (R-Massachusetts) came up. How did it happen that the rulers in Massachusetts enabled the election of a Black Episcopalian man in a 97 percent white Catholic state in 1966? Supposedly all is white supremacy and yet Massachusetts elected a black man to represent the state in the bad old days. The incongruence vexed us.

We talked about pietas in Black American families. We talked about how blood is thicker than water, how the Black Panthers do not predict all there is to the Negro vision of life.

We talked about the one drop rule and the changing definitions of blackness in the land. We discussed the importance of living outside the U.S. for a perception free of race as a race filter.

We shared non-conforming ideas about race and the importance of writing for the world, not just a black subset. We talked about the importance of first impressions of life and how the world does not run on pain.

There was the obligatory trash talk about Ta-Nehisi Coates. But ultimately dogma and slogan words were of less importance than fresh insights from the pages of life.

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Conclusion: Ultimately, our all-day conversation drew to a close with those we call family. Wives and daughters and sons led to the crescendo in our day. Warm advice was exchanged between us. It was my belief that the most important choices one can make in life are to be true to oneself and to choose the right life partner.

Marriage is a life long commitment if done well. There will be differences along the way. The trick is to marry a partner who shares one’s most fervent values and attitudes in life. It is the unity of purpose that wards off throwing in the towel.

The most important legacy of a marriage would be children and grandchildren. Be a good ancestor. Even the choices and rules of great grandparents resonant across the generations. Allow your children to know they are the latest link in a family saga across time.

Even during times of war and unrest, love and remembrance endures.