Inspiration (& Apparitions) in the Dark
An unexpected source of inspiration during my recent writing residency.
Sometimes it takes darkness to show us what we really believe. I learned this on a recent writing retreat at Weymouth Center for the Arts and Humanities in Southern Pines, NC. I spent a week there revising my third novel (more details to come “soon”…I promise!). When I applied to be a writer in residence, I had visions of silence and solitude with seven days of immersion and complete focus on my manuscript. Well, let’s just say my time there was immersed in a story I didn’t expect.
When I arrived at Weymouth to begin my weeklong residency, I was given a tour of the Boyd House—a 9,000-square-foot home built in 1921 by the author James Boyd and his wife Katharine. The Boyds hosted literary greats like Thomas Wolfe, Paul Green, Sherwood Anderson, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. I was immediately enamored by the great hall (that half of my house would fit into), Boyd’s study (that is so large it houses the NC Literary Hall of Fame), the endless windows, multiple staircases, creaking wood floors (which aren’t so charming in the middle of the night), and the 26-acres of gardens, plus the 100-acre nature preserve.
I immediately learned an interesting tidbit about the Boyd house history that had nothing to do with the landscaping and architecture.
While I can’t say a lot about my work in progress, what I can say is that, set in the 1950s, this is a very close first-person perspective of Lulu, a suburban housewife who, after the birth of her second child, just can’t seem to be as happy with her quintessential-American-Dream life as she “should” be. Mind you, this is the era when hysteria and housewife syndrome were blanket medical diagnoses that could cover a whole host of ailments and mental health conditions.
Lulu has been a bit elusive at times as I’ve worked my way through the early draft of this book. At some points, she has gladly shared her story with me, but at other times, she has preferred to stay hidden. I applied to go to Weymouth in hopes that the focused time would encourage Lulu to help me add more layers and depth to this manuscript. What I couldn’t have predicted was that inspiration would come from another source: a woman named Isabel who perhaps had her own encounter with hysteria.
While there is a lot about Isabel’s life that I do not know, what I have pieced together from information that has since been passed on to me is that Isabel and her husband lived at Weymouth for a time in the mid-1940s. She held a degree from Smith and had a child, but her story took a tragic turn after moving into the Boyd house. A newspaper article called her “despondent” and the story goes that she perhaps went “mad” or “hysterical” before she took her life in that house, in the room right next to my own.
Again, there’s very little that I really know about this woman and what her experience was, yet I couldn’t help but in some way feel as if she had called me to that place to whisper a bit of her story, to give voice to the women throughout history who were written off as “hysterical” instead of given the care and help they so desperately needed.
But here’s the thing: Isabel sometimes liked to whisper in the dark. And that’s when I came to realize that sometimes what we think in the light is not the same as in the darkest hours.
You see, my first night there, I was in bed watching a movie (Before Sunrise, which I’m happy to report is still amazing and a masterclass in dialogue) when my closet door opened. I assumed I hadn’t latched it tightly (it is an old house with settled doorframes). So, I got out of bed, latched the door, moved something in front of it, and finished my movie. A few nights later, I had a hard time sleeping and heard a lot of creaking floors and closing doors. I assumed it was the other writer in residence and tried my best to get back to sleep. Another night, I thought I heard music playing, but I figured my brain was simply trying to find patterns in my white noise.
But then I started hearing about the ghost stories of the place: the apparitions people have seen over the years, the music people have heard playing at all hours of the night, the doors that open and close on their own, the shifted rugs, the footsteps on the balcony, the beds that move on their own. Yeah, that’s the one that got me!
In the daylight, I am a logical person. I can rationalize that I didn’t latch the door tightly. I’m sure the floor and door creaks were from the other writer. I know that music was simply my imagination, but I didn’t turn off the white noise to verify. As logical as I can be in the daylight, the night time made me question what I really believe. Do I really think ghosts are real? I do know that I regret watching all those scary movies over the years.
I don’t know if Isabel was really there with me, hoping I’d transcribe some of her experience into Lulu’s story. What I do know is that I felt a renewed sense of purpose to tell this story and to give voice to those who have been voiceless. I hope this story will make Isabel proud, heard, and seen…but not in the haunted sort of way. I also hope that when I return to Weymouth, she will continue to be kind to me and to not move my bed because in that moment, I will truly know without a doubt what I believe about spirits. And I will also know just how quickly I can exit that big, beautiful Boyd house.
Even in spite of the ghost stories, I cannot recommend highly enough the writers-in-residency program. If you are a published writer and North Carolina native, current resident, or have a direct tie to the state, you can apply. Visit the website for more information: https://weymouthcenter.org/programs/writers-in-residence/
(Note: this is not a sponsored post. Weymouth is a gift for NC writers and I simply want to spread the word.❤️)
The Girls We Sent Away is available most places books are sold. It’s the story of Lorraine Delford, the girl-next-door who seems to have it all – an upstanding family, a perfect boyfriend, an idyllic home complete with a white picket fence, and the ambition to become an astronaut – until she finds herself pregnant out of wedlock and is sent away to a maternity home to hide her secret shame. Set in the 1960s during the intersection of the Baby Scoop Era and Space Race, this powerful and affecting story explores autonomy, belonging, and a quest for agency when the illusions of life-as-you-know-it fall away.