Fairy Tale Blues (41 page)

Finally I had grown from the woman who abandoned herself for the sake of others into a woman who loved herself enough to include all others.

That was how it began and now I stood on my log porch, once again watching the tulips scoop wind and the aspens sway on the slopes of Snow King Mountain, newly sprouted into pale green gauze that barely hid their limbs, reminding me as it did every year of flirtatious women wearing see-through dresses.

And beside me, Jess.

Tina Welling
lives and writes in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, with her husband, John, and four-legged family members Zoë and Miko. You can reach her at
www.tinawelling.com

A CONVERSATION WITH TINA WELLING

 

A. Marriage can be absorbing and isolating. There are just the two of you tussling over a range of issues from the most intimate to the most mundane. Marriage partners can lose perspective after many years of closeness. Privacy within the relationship can become insulating and we can get locked into certain views.

I've been invited to attend writers' residencies that have taken me away from my everyday life for extended periods. The solitude and the absence of responsibilities that defined me at home offered new perspectives.

That's when I thought: what if a woman decided to leave temporarily to deepen a relationship with herself? In my case, there was a legitimate work reason for leaving home, but I wondered what it would take for a woman to go against the cultural grain and spend time on her own away from her marriage.

 

 

A. I think we've always got it right. My grandmother Margaret's marriage was perfect for her and her times, so was my mother, Alice's, and so is mine and my children's. Marriage presents challenges that are mirrors of our society. Yet typically each generation evolves the concept of partnering to a new level.

I like watching how emotional and physical intimacy that once was considered the wife's domain has also become the responsibility of the husband. Don't you love seeing those men with diaper bags over their shoulders? And I love how a strong sense of self, which was once the husband's domain—remember dens, those special rooms designed for a man to get away from the family and pursue his own interests?—is now also an honored pursuit of a wife.

I've witnessed among my friends the imbalances that can occur with such growth, and one of them is men holding back on the provider end, as I suggest Jess does in the sports business that he and Annie share, and the women taking charge of everything inside the home and out, as Annie did. Confusion can slip in when we share life and authority. There are few guides for evolving partnerships.

So there is no right way or wrong way. Many of us come into our marriages hoping to acquire all the love and acceptance and understanding we felt we didn't receive from our parents—plus the sizzle of sex and romance. It's a setup for all kinds of challenges.

 

Q. In the conversation guide of your previous novel,
Crybaby Ranch
, you describe how that novel grew out of the exciting intersection of your own experience and your creative imagination. Was that true for
Fairy Tale Blues
as well?

 

A. Definitely. For me, that's how the creative process works. The two—reality and imagination (which is to say the range of possibility I can conjure)—join and produce stories. Yet the end result is always fiction. There is nothing of the memoir in my novels. For example, the longtime love my husband and I share opens my vision to the many possibilities partnering can take and aids me in expressing the experience of deep intimacy and caring, but the result on the page does not in any way resemble my personal actions or those of anyone I know.

It's a creative process that is a microcosm of the natural world of birthing—how could it be otherwise?—in that male and female mate and the result is a whole new being. Not one or the other, but an original creation unto itself. So it is with story. Reality and imagination (or possibility) mate and the result is a unique story.

 

Q. Many writers say that their final work never quite lives up to their intention, never quite says all that they meant to say. What did you want to say in
Fairy Tale Blues
that might not have gotten said?

 

A. I wanted to say so much that I had difficulty in choosing my issues. Many issues I touched on, but wished to say more about. For example, I wanted to say, “Look what else you can do besides divorce.” There are a dozen steps of separation that couples can take in response to unresolved issues, while saving the valuable parts of the relationship. I wanted to say, “Create your own form of partnering.”

 

Q. How did the experience of writing this novel differ from your experience writing
Crybaby Ranch
?

 

A. I wrote
Crybaby Ranch
over a long period of time while I also owned a resort business in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. It's hard to write seriously while working in the business world, and I have a lot of sympathy for those who face this struggle. I've since let go of my shop. With
Fairy Tale Blues
I was able to write full-time, which was wonderful. It seemed an entirely different process. More concentrated. I loved it. The lifestyle that writing a novel demands matches me perfectly. It's easy for me to be self-disciplined. In fact, I don't even call it that. It feels more like freedom—oh good, I get to wake up and write all day again tomorrow.

 

 

A. I love to read and wouldn't stop for anything. Some writers say they can't read while writing because they find themselves aping another writer's style. I don't have that experience. Yet, in another way, everything I read influences or inspires my work. I especially love beautiful language. I become entranced by it and find that even though I am reading in bed with only the pleasure of the story in mind, I am still studying where the author placed the commas, pondering the sentence structure and word choices. I admire Barbara Kingsolver very much, her wisdom and humor. I don't know that I am particularly influenced by her, but I aspire to her vision and her skill in relating that to her readers. I am especially interested in reading poets who write novels, because of the careful language and the deep awareness for which poets are noted.

I read both fiction and nonfiction. And though I will have several nonfiction books going at once, I will usually read only one novel at a time.

 

A. What I love best about reading a novel is when the characters' realizations within the story clarify personal issues for me. To have a writer put words to a troublesome concern of mine is a wonderful experience that grounds me and allows me to move forward. A similar thing occurs when a writer finds the language to express beauty and insight. I glow with the celebration of it. I hope to give that to readers myself.

So perhaps I aspire to a little of both: a long view of continuing to write and offer readers the gifts I love to receive, yet the subjects are still to be discovered.

 

 

A. Timing is mysterious. For years I felt that my true self was a writer, yet few people acknowledged me as one, so I felt as though I lived a secret life. Perhaps the most comforting aspect about being published is that my inner and outer lives have been united.

Yet I know that if my work had been published earlier I would have given it more weight in my life than would have been well balanced for me. By the time my first novel was published, my work had been rejected by publishers for many years. I had to learn not to take that personally, or I wouldn't have been strong enough to continue to write and to fully experience the immense joy I receive from it.

Now I don't take my current success personally either. I enjoy it very much. I love the opportunities that are available to me now and the wider acquaintanceship of people with whom I interact. But being published doesn't have much to do with how I see myself, just as I had learned not to let being unpublished affect my self-image.

I think writing is like every other creative pursuit: we must do it for itself and not for any result we imagine it may bring us. Writing is our concern; what happens to it after it leaves our hands is no longer our business. For me writing is an act of unconditional love. I do it for reasons that have nothing to do with what it may bring—money, acceptance, self-esteem. As soon as I stepped onto that path of thought, something was released in me. I continued to send my work out, but I wasn't attached to it as I had been before.

I would give the advice to writers that the poet William Stafford offers in his book
Crossing Unmarked Snow
(University of Michigan, 1998): “Make writing a way of life, a practice that can lead to self-realization, to a fuller involvement in one's own experience.” What could be better?

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. Annie realizes she has had expectations about marriage that weren't realistic. Are there fairy tales about marriage that you've believed? Has that changed over the years? How does your experience compare to Annie's?

2. Tina Welling provides snapshots of several other marriages besides Annie and Jess'. Did anything about them particularly surprise you? Appeal to you? Appall you?

3. Annie is energized and inspired by the creative projects she undertakes, but Jess disdains the high value she places on Creativity with a capital C, distinguishing between “art” and “crap.” Where does your opinion fall in this age-old argument?

4. Jess is described as a “cuddly predator.” Have you known any cuddly predators, male or female?

5. Annie is drawn to Daniel, a reformed drug smuggler. What is he able to provide for her that Jess can't, or won't?

6. What is the Skipper's role in the novel? How does he compare to the senior citizens you know?

7. Annie's sons help her see her marriage from a new perspective, and suggest that their own experience of marriage will be different from hers. How are the young marriages you know different from older ones? Do you see those differences as healthy and encouraging, or not?

8. Describe the role of the natural world in the lives of Annie and Jess. How important is the natural world in your life?

9. In your opinion, does Annie do the right thing in leaving Jess? Does she do the right thing at the end? What kind of future do you see for them?

10. Has there been a time in your life when you sought solitude in order to make a major decision or achieve a new understanding? What was that experience like for you, and what changes occurred as a result?

11. Annie comments at one point that many people come to know themselves through their relationships with other people. Are you that kind of person?

12. If you left your spouse temporarily, where would you go? What would you do?