When I set out to write Away
at a Camp in Maine, my goal was to write a book that made me (and thereby
my reader) feel like a James Taylor song.
I wanted to capture the feeling
– the quiet, the calm, the beauty, the nature, the essence, the real-ness, the
sweet.
When I hear the first string of
his guitar in any James Taylor song, I feel the rhythm of my heart slow down
just a beat. I smile. I am instantly transported to another time, a
time in the 1970’s when I was a teenager full of so much hope and promise –
when all the world was good, when anything was possible.
It’s my “Carolina.” It transports me to my happy place.
As a writer, words are my elixir. They pirouette around my mind, dropping like
falling leaves, gently floating around in my head, twisting, bending. When they’re best, they’re quiet, calm,
beautiful, natural……
"Can't you see the sunshine
Can't you just feel the moonshine"
Words are what create the pictures for me.
Words calm me and allow me to make sense, or
at least accept, what I see around me -- people, others’ conversations, the
world. They uplift me as I walk alone
and choose just the right word for what I’m seeing, smelling, hearing.
Some people likely see pictures, in Technicolor. Or they revel in music. But me, I can close my eyes and it’s the
words in my mind that create the pictures that can bring me to my “Carolina,”
that can transport me to anywhere in the universe.
I have a rich world between my ears and
whenever I wish, I just pull inward and transport.
“Carolina In My Mind,” James Taylor: Greatest Hits. Warner Bros Records, Inc. © 1976
