The things you learn while editing: Today, finally, I confirmed the meaning
of "antebellum."
Without looking it up, over time I came to decipher the meaning at least
in the United States as dating back to before the Civil War. That is where the term is used most
often. Who has ever read a novel about the South that doesn't have an antebellum
mansion in it?
The real meaning came up today in a conversation with
Patricia. Now, if you have stuck
with this blog over the years, you know Patricia as a writer friend with whom I
carried on long electronic conversations about writing. In time she developed cancer and she
died last November, leaving me with a void in my life and three expensive
tickets to a Lady Gaga concert.
She also left me with a chore. At the time of her death, she was editing her book "The
New Book of Goddesses and Heroines" for a new edition. Mostly the editing was shortening the
book. She was unable to finish it
and her husband asked me to complete the edit, a chore I at first resisted, but
now have embraced as it is keeping me in touch with my friend, in part giving
me an answer to the question I asked at the end of the post I wrote about her
passing: What am I going to do
now? What I am going to do, what I am doing is converse with
her almost daily about word choices, antecedents, references and all the little
details of writing craft. Patricia
is one of those writers who is difficult to cut. It is a burden for editors, but a joyful one, because good
writers like Patricia make it very difficult to leave anything out.
As I have gone through it, I find myself looking at the
ceiling wondering what she meant here, and is this going to hurt the message if
I take it out, and why did you say this instead of this? I find myself often talking to her,
explaining why this or that is a good cut and why I took it out, even sometimes apologizing for what I am cutting, sometimes
shaking my head to chastise, noting something I know I told her about years ago. I can almost see the smile on her face
as she patronizes me, acknowledging that I am right, while at the same time
stubbornly refusing to change it.
Along the way she is teaching me, exposing a world and a perspective very new to
my way of thinking. I wonder how much
of classical mythology reaches kids in schools today. I know from what I am reading now that what little I
received in world history and Latin classes was largely male-based,
highlighting the gods and relegating the goddesses to consort roles. That's the perspective Patricia is now
in the process of changing for me.
I catch myself often saying, oh that's where that comes
from, while reading one entry or another and connecting a name to modern word
usage, or seeing the logic in the development of goddesses in native cultures,
some of whom are still with us in one form or another. Just look at the names of all the stars
and particularly constellations.
And I so much want to tell her a story. Often when dealing with ancient
cultures there are varying opinions and interpretation of people and events
that occurred before written history and even after for that matter. As a result people writing about it and
attempting to show all interpretations will use the term "Some say,"
this or that. What I want to tell
her is that while I was in college, in an age of change, black studies and
particularly history courses were quickly added to curricula. At the University of Kansas a black
history professor from a small college in Missouri was flown in twice a week to
teach a huge lecture class in that history. Twice a week we had to sit and listen to this guy drone on
taking all the life out of what should have been fascinating history beginning
with origins in Africa. His
favorite source was a professor "some say" as I called it, for
example (and he really said this) "Some say Cleopatra was black." Eventually
I quit going to class except for the midterm and the final. At the time I was also taking Recent
American History, which began in the late 19th century. An energetic young instructor taught it
and he had wound black history in the with rest of it. How good was he? I got a B in black history and a C in
modern American history. But the
younger fellow never quoted Dr. Some Say.
And, now whenever I come across Patricia saying "Some say..."
I have to laugh and look at the ceiling and wish I could tell her why I want to
change it.
So the conversations with Patricia go on, in an altered
state, but allowing me to feel she is still at least influencing us. I am sure, given our conversations
about procrastination, she would be laughing at the machinations I go through
to avoid sitting down and cutting more out of her beautiful piece of work. But I do it, because it keeps us in
touch, and pushes further into the future that day when I have to ask again
"What am I going to do now?"
And, "antebellum?" According to Patricia, Bellona was a Roman goddess who ruled
conflict, diplomatic as well as military, and the Latin word for war,
"bellum," derives from her name.
