Gearing Up To Write The Book

I look up from my desk, where I am clearing away this or that to-do item in preparation for the New Year, motivated by my determination to get back to work and to get this damn book written.  The second half of 2024 had some rough spots, some shit that shat, and it’s only now become clear to me how much the writing voice has left my head, the muse gone from my mind.  I haven’t written anything for months and months.  

For the last few weeks, I’ve thought about my former facebook persona, “Lisa Dossenbach Kleman.”  (I had inserted the family ancestral name as my middle name, in the hopes that descendants searching for relatives would find me — and it worked!)   Lisa Dossenbach Kleman (me, of course, reinvented) was the one who started it all — she had all that oomph and pizzazz to plop herself down in a new city and meet all those people, and to, well, make herself up:  “I’m writing a book,” I told everyone.  And everyone ooh’ed and aah’ed.  Ah, those were the days.  

Lisa Dossenbach Kleman got to do all the fun stuff, the discovery of the story, the travel, the research, the presentations, the attention.  But that’s all gone now.  Now there is just this room, and the photos, and all of the historical information carefully organized in the Macbook (my other brain), waiting for me to draw upon it and write.  

    I guess this is the hardest part, I say to myself.  Who knew.  The months go by, I haven’t written the book.  I haven’t written it, but I have endlessly worried about it (am I one of those people who never actually write their book?).  

So, now it is time for a new incarnation — Lisa Melley Kleman.  My true name, the name I was given by my parents, the name I rejected throughout my youthful years, because it was my mother’s name.   Melley.  Melley Ann Wheeler.  Melley Kleman.  I need my mother’s energy now.  She got everything she wanted; she could be ruthless, when necessary.  She didn’t appear to let feelings or fears stop her.  She would grit her teeth, harden her eyes (so much so that the left eye would twitch sometimes; oh, how I hated that), and not let anything get in her way.  I, on the other hand, have been blown by the wind, ideas scattered here and there, buoyed only by short-lived bursts of determination.  I need my mother’s energy now. 

It is Lisa Melley Kleman’s time — I really need her (me) to get this book written.    

But when those words — “get this book written” — cross my brain, I am transported in thought, and so I look up from my desk and off to the left, not at anything in particular.  And that’s when I see this guy, Beethoven, peering at me, rudely almost, imposing and maybe impatient.  “What are you doing,” he sneers at me, “you’ll never do it if you don’t become more driven.  Where is your gumph?”  

I’m taken aback.  I feel accused.  Ugh, I’ll never do it.  Horrible feeling.

My eyes slide just a bit further to the left, and I am saved by this guy, Wagner, who is also looking directly at me, but with confidence and, maybe, familiarity.   “Don’t listen to him,” he says, “you’ll do it.  We’re looking forward to it, actually, it’s gonna be fun.”  

Who knew?  Wagner for the save.  Smile on my face.  Yeah, I’m gonna do it.

And then I wonder who else is looking at me.  I need support.  I need these people to help.  For the last few days and weeks, I’ve been silently calling on them, the ones who were there, the ones whose stories must be told — please, I need your help.  

And so I look around at the hundreds of photos of places and faces on my wall.    And I see her — my great-great-grandmother, Regula.  My God, I swear she is looking directly at Me, even though her grown children in the same photo are all looking elsewhere, towards the light coming from their window.  Not Regula, she is turning away from the window and has her sights on me.  Her look is soothing; she sends love; she sends her absolute certainty that I will write this book in the coming months.   And I know that if anyone can inspire successful creativity, it is Regula; after all, she raised the musical Dossenbachs.  She knows what she’s doing.

But then I see Adeline, also looking at me. 

My grandmother.  Who I knew.  Who I remember, and not pleasantly.  I didn’t expect her.  Adeline!   Puzzlement and pleasure pour over me.  Adeline is my supporter? How can this be?  Adeline, who I’ve only recently come to love, via the old photos, if not the actual memories.  In her time, and long before I knew her, she was vibrant and happy.  

Glancing over all of the images, all the faces which I’ve seen over and over again, with eyes that are pulling me in, I am drawn to the far left, and up towards the top.  There is this woman, who essentially, maybe, doesn’t belong here, because she never knew the Dossenbachs.  She was a Worcester, Massachusetts, rich lady, who tried to help those in need, and who was painted by John Singer Sargent, who evoked her essence, her humanity.  I had noticed her years and years ago in the Worcester Art Museum, and had, for

unknown reasons, kept her photo with me, perhaps because of her eyes, her searing look, trying to tell us something real about the world, about life.  

Her look towards me, at this moment, is not necessarily charitable. “Just get to work,” she says.  “There’s not as much time as you think.  There never is.”  She takes my breath away, and so I jerk my gaze off to the right — Where is Theodore?  Where is Nellie? 

      I see Theodore and Nellie there, in their photos, but they are not looking at me.  Hermann is, though.  And not just any Hermann — 1890s, cocky, arrogant, driven, charming Hermann. 

In his 20s, he knew what he wanted, and he went after it, and he got it.  And now he is looking right at me.  His demeanor is not clear, but he doesn’t appear unkind.  “Come on, now, really, we’ve been waiting quite a while now.  Please, dig deep, do this.”  It’s hard to read Hermann’s face. is he supportive?  Impatient?  Does he think I can do it?  

Of course he does.  “Anyone can do it,” he says, “that is, if you just do it.  Do it!”  Okay, okay, okay.

This is exhausting.  I want to look back down at my much-simpler list of things-to-do-before-the-end-of-the-year.  This is all a bit much.  More than I bargained for.  I asked for support, and I got a bunch of disparate voices and people and personalities.  And they aren’t necessarily behaving in the way I would have thought.   

I want to look back down at my computer screen, but I am inexplicably drawn up and up and up, to the point where the slanted bedroom wall meets the ceiling.   And there he is. 

       While there is an expression of kindness, and sadness, in his eyes, his body language is clear.  Crystal clear.  Stop wasting time.  Get to work.  Get the thing done.   It’s now or never.  Don’t disappoint yourself.  

(Or us, don’t disappoint us, I hear some of the others whisper.)  

Yes, Mr. Eastman, and thank you.  

________________________

NOTES:  

     Busts of Beethoven and Wagner were once owned by Hermann Dossenbach, and were gifted to me by his granddaughter, Alma Faroo.

     Photo of Regula courtesy Jacque Fraser.  

     John Singer Sargent painting, "Lizzie B. Dewey (Mrs. Francis Henshaw Dewey II)," 1890, Worcester Art Museum.

     Photo of Hermann courtesy Polly Smith.

     Photo of George Eastman courtesy George Eastman Museum.