Summer Challenge Week Seven: Time Travel

Challenge #7: Time Travel. The concept of time travel, of being able to move backwards and forwards to different points in time, is an important part of creative thinking. With a little imagination it can show us the way that something has always been done, or it can give us the freedom to imagine the future and the way we believe it could be done better. In this interpretive weekly challenge, I encourage you to do some of your own time traveling this week. Become a time travel tourist and visit a local historical house or site. You can also do some arm chair traveling and pick up a biography about someone who you admire from a different time period or rent a movie from a different era. Pay close attention to what stories or experiences you find memorable, or what objects capture your attention.

If the past holds little interest to you, travel to the future by sending a postcard or letter from your “future self” to your current self. How many years in the future is it? How old are you? What are you doing? What advice do you have for your current (past) self. (Think Charles Dicken’s A Christmas Carol for this exercise.)

With the concept of time travel as your touchpoint, whatever you choose to do, make sure to record in your sketchbook any inspiration, ideas, illustrations, or thoughts—then share here on The Paper Compass.

This summer, I have been experimenting with time travel.

A popular form of travel mainly occurring in science fiction books, TV, movies, and the DC comic universe, it is also the Big Idea behind the well done radio ad campaign for the non-profit organization Historic New England. With their cleverly designed “passport” guide to their 36 preservation properties in five states in-hand, my time travel adventures this summer took me back to 1940 at the Walter Gropius house and to circa 1890 at The Codman Estate, both in Lincoln, Massachusetts.

With time travel on my mind, it was with some interest that I learned that physicists from Hong Kong University recently announced that time travel is impossible and officially only something that could occur in science fiction. A fan of Jack Finney’s classic time travel books Time and Again and From Time to Time, I was a little disappointed to hear this conclusion, presented in a radio news story as I made my way slowly through traffic on Mass Ave.

While there is a part of me that respects that the speed of a photon cannot travel faster than the speed of light—hereby supporting Einstein’s theory that “an effect cannot occur before its cause”—there is another part of me that holds out hope though, that maybe just like in Finney’s novels, time travel is closer to hypnosis, and therefore just another deeper layer of the mind, rather than an actual place.

Another pin pick to the theory of time travel is English theoretical physicist and cosmologist, Stephen Hawking’s observation that if time travel was possible, we would have more tourists from the future. While we could surmise that they are very discrete, the lack of time travel tourists seems to point to evidence of it not being possible, or something that is not explored. Based on the number of ostentatious baby blue CSI crime scene booties that I have worn this summer to carefully traipse across the floors of historic houses without further wearing down the carpet—I can tell you one thing, I don’t think that time travel could ever be subtle.

But I like this idea of time travel tourists. It is a perfect expression for the nostalgic pleasure that I experience when I see the house stationery on the desk at The Codman Estate with “The Grange” engraved on the envelope—no need for an address. Or the long built-in desk where Walter Gropius and his wife worked side by side the window before them framing the view of a hill covered with long yellow grass and Queen Ann's Lace in the summer.

While most people on the house tours seem to be interested in the craftsmanship of the floor tile or the rarity of the paintings, I am imagining an evening conversation at the Gropius dinner table with its dramatic lighting. Or what happened to motivate the oldest Codman daughter, whose bedroom is filled with her own watercolor paintings, to ride her bicycle from Lincoln to Marblehead in one day in the early summer at the turn of the century. Was it athleticism? Curiosity? Boredom? Did she start riding and then just keep going? Did she forgo her corset? Did any of her friends begin the journey with her and decide to turn back while she continued on alone?

I believe that the role of the imagination is to create blue prints for ideas, to test them out, to taste them before we make them real. As a writer, my version of time travel inspires me toward new ideas for stories and also helps me see details that may make the story authentic.

Time travel though is also a way to step away from our own lives. Understanding a different time in history can be as inspiring as understanding a new culture. In learning, you open up your mind not just to immediate insights about what you are studying, but also gain insights into your own life, or the reasons behind why you do something a certain way. There are many “departing gates” for being a time travel tourist, from history books, to antique stores, to museum artifacts. This week especially though, I encourage you to do some immersion time travel by visiting a historical house or building in your town and see what it inspires.

All of this is inspiration for the seventh summer challenge: time travel. The concept of time travel, of being able to move backwards and forwards to different points in time is an important part of creative thinking. With a little imagination it can show us the way that something has always been done, or it can give us the freedom to imagine the future and the way we believe it could be done better (this is especially important for innovation—think of Dick Tracey’s futuristic walkie-talkie watch or the Futurism art movement at the beginning of the 20th Century). In this interpretive weekly challenge, I encourage you to do some of your own time traveling this week. Become a time travel tourist and visit a local historical house or site. You can also do some arm chair traveling and pick up a biography about someone who you admire from a different time period or rent a movie from a different era. Pay close attention to what stories or experiences you find memorable, or what objects capture your attention.

If the past holds little interest to you, travel to the future by sending a postcard or letter from your “future self” to your current self. How many years in the future is it? How old are you? What are you doing? What advice do you have for your current (past) self. (Think Charles Dicken’s A Christmas Carol for this exercise.)

With the concept of time travel as your touchpoint, whatever you choose to do, make sure to record in your sketchbook any inspiration, ideas, illustrations, or thoughts—then share here on The Paper Compass.

Summer Challenge Week Six: Postcards

Challenge #6: Postcards. Whether you are traveling abroad, to the museum in the next town over, or just feel like adding an element of the exotic to your daily routine, writing a postcard to someone (even yourself) is a great way to capture your thoughts, document the moment, and connect.

With this as your touchpoint, this week take the time to write and send a postcard to someone (or yourself). If you are traveling this week, take the time to pick up some postcards as souvenirs and send them to a friend back home, or use them as a posted travel journal. Writing and sending a postcard from a local museum or attraction can make the difference between day trip and memorable adventure.

Postcards are also a great way to document artist dates, and I encourage you to send a postcard to yourself sharing what you did—through words, a sketch or even an idea. If being a homebody is in the weekly plans, use a postcard you have on hand and send it to someone who you have been thinking about (it will make their day). Whatever you choose to do, make sure to record in your sketchbook any inspiration, ideas, illustrations, or thoughts—then share here on The Paper Compass.

If summer was a piece of stationery it would be a postcard.

Short and sweet, rich with vivid imagery and a snapshot of vibrant thoughts, the postcard in all its casual practicality is the embodiment of summer. Filled with sentiments such as wish you were here, thinking of you, or the itinerary of travel, the postcard is a perfect vehicle for capturing and sharing your thoughts within a specific moment, whether mundane or memorable.

One of the things that I like best about postcards is that while letters have an illustrious history, the postcard has a slightly checkered past. It is believed that in 1840, the first postcard was sent by British writer and infamous rake Theodore Hook. Addressed to himself, from himself, and containing a caricature of workers at the post office, it is believed to be a practical joke on the postal service. As Hook was also known for the Berners Street Hoax, this sounds completely feasible.

Postcards as a popular form of souvenirs or for sending short messages began to catch on in Europe in the 1870s. By the late 1880s and early 1890s, images of the newly built Eiffel Tower at the World’s Fair and the exhibits at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, would ushered in what is known as the Golden Age of Picture Postcards.

While the postcard is most closely associated with souvenir images of tourist and architectural attractions, any illustration—from flowers to advertisements—could (and did) grace the front. By the 1930s, the “saucy postcard” was in its heyday with cartoon illustrations of bawdy imagery, and the use of text filled with innuendos, double entendres and bawdy images.

Postcards to this day remain an important part of the souvenir industry, but more importantly, they have come to embody the mythos of a person abroad, exploring, looking for themselves through the experience of new places. For author and prize-winning journalist Alice Steinbach, postcards became a key element of recapturing the narrative of her life as she traveled through England, France and Italy on a journey of personal discovery and reconnection. These postcards, sent to herself, make up the backbone of her book Without Reservations: The Travels of an Independent Woman. In the well-known PostSecret project, the mythos and public nature of the postcard is taken one step further to anonymous confessions that connect us with others and the complexity of our own humanity.

All of this is inspiration for the sixth summer challenge: postcards. Whether you are traveling abroad, to the museum in the next town over, or just feel like adding an element of the exotic to your daily routine, writing a postcard to someone (even yourself) is a great way to capture your thoughts, document the moment, and connect (or reconnect).

With this as your touchpoint, this week take the time to write and send a postcard to someone (or yourself). If you are traveling this week, take the time to pick up some postcards as souvenirs and send them to a friend back home, or use them as a posted travel journal. Writing and sending a postcard from a local museum or attraction can make the difference between day trip and memorable adventure.

Postcards are also a great way to document artist dates, and I encourage you to send a postcard to yourself sharing what you did—through words, a sketch or even an idea. If being a homebody is in the weekly plans, use a postcard you have on hand and send it to someone who you have been thinking about (it will make their day). Whatever you choose to do, make sure to record in your sketchbook any inspiration, ideas, illustrations, or thoughts—then share here on The Paper Compass.

Summer Challenge Week Five: Summer Love

Challenge #5: Summer Love. Summer gives us a unique time to be bold, to feel open, and to experiment. In this interpretive challenge, think about your own summer loves—romantic and/or experimental (such as a new idea, endeavor, or hobby.) How did you feel when they were happening? How did you feel after the summer ended? If you were to bring more romance or creative expression to your summer, how would you do so? If you were to create your own Summer of Love in the remaining weeks of summer, what would you do? How would it affect your daily life or routine?

With this as your touchpoint, this week meditate on summer love. You may be inspired by the core concepts of experimentation, openness and freedom of expression OR you may remember a relationship that made your summer memorable. Summer love, especially romance lends itself to many mediums for storytelling—visual, literary, or musical. You may also be inspired to experiment with integrating some Summer of Love creative expression into your weekly routine. Whatever you choose to do, make sure to record in your sketchbook any inspiration, ideas, illustrations, or thoughts—then share here on The Paper Compass.

From Sandy and Danny to Sammi and Ronnie, summer has always been a season of love. Whether it is the seductive call of a warm night, the baring of skin, or the inevitable end date, summer romances are well documented in literature, movies, and what seems like an almost endless repertoire of songs. The dictionary defines romance as something that is fanciful, impractical, idealized and sentimental. Add in summer and you get the classic definition of summer romance: two (sometimes unlikely) people being open to taking a risk on their attraction, with no idea where it will go after the summer ends. In the case of Sandy and Danny in the musical Grease, we get to see the challenges of the romance when school returns. In the case of Sammi and Ronnie on the Jersey Shore, we get to watch multiple episodes of bad behavior. Love is never easy.

Summer heightens emotions. Like attracts like. People (especially youth) gather.

In the summer of 1967, roughly 100,000 people gathered in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district, creating a hub for the hippie counterculture movement that spread across the US during what was known as The Summer of Love. It was a pivotal summer in history, when the 60’s counterculture gained awareness in the US as a cultural revolution and the movement spread through similar gatherings in many other cities in the US, Canada and Europe. Synonymous with creative expression, communal living, free love, psychedelic drugs and music, The Summer of Love was also seen as a social experiment. “It was about exploration, finding new ways of expression, being aware of one’s existence” Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weir said of Haight-Ashbury and The Summer of Love.

Just like any summer relationship (think Sammi and Ronnie more than Sandy and Danny) The Summer of Love, had consequences both good and bad that have shaped who we are today. Beat poet Michael McClure says of the summer of 1967, "If these young people hadn't declared the possibility of a new culture, a new family, a new tribe, believing in peace, nature, sexuality, the positive use of psychedelic drugs -- if they hadn't been there to broaden and deepen the hundreds of thousands and then millions of people who were broadened and deepened by this -- we would be in an even bigger [global environmental and economic] stew."

Whether it is a summer love or The Summer of Love, both of these experiences—one personal and one cultural—at their heart are about being open and taking creative risks. Summer love is about the freedom of exploring new ideas and new relationships without the restraints of the analytical mind of fall and winter. Most importantly, summer love is about the very important creative principle of experimenting.*

All this is the inspiration for the fifth summer challenge: Summer Love. Summer gives us a unique time to be bold, to feel open, and to experiment. In this interpretive challenge, think about your own summer loves—romantic and/or experimental (such as a new idea, endeavor, or hobby.) How did you feel when they were happening? How did you feel after the summer ended? If you were to bring more romance or creative expression to your summer, how would you do so? If you were to create your own Summer of Love in the remaining weeks of summer, what would you do? How would it affect your daily life or routine?

With this as your touchpoint, this week meditate on summer love. You may be inspired by the core concepts of experimentation, openness and freedom of expression OR you may remember a relationship that made your summer memorable. Summer love, especially romance lends itself to many mediums for storytelling—visual, literary, or musical. You may also be inspired to experiment with integrating some Summer of Love creative expression into your weekly routine. Whatever you choose to do, make sure to record in your sketchbook any inspiration, ideas, illustrations, or thoughts—then share here on The Paper Compass.

*The terms “risk” and “experimenting” are to be used within the context of creative thinking. Please be safe!

Summer Challenge Week Four: Scents of Summer

Memory

That was the second Fourth of July
I didn't go down to the river.
I thought of you though, and when the sparks
of rockets and Roman candles lit the neighborhood
I strayed
halfway down the street,
sparkler in hand,
the smell of sulfur in my nose,
when it burned out.

And I ran from there,
to the dirt road behind the Bowman's house,
dogs barking from screened-in porches
in the Country Club. This is where you and I
had stolen the oranges. Walked barefoot
next to the fire ant piles
juice dripping from our fingers.

Through the dark, the red beacon
of the electrical box, blinking slowly
a quarter mile down. I cut across
the vacant lot, burs sticking
to my shoelaces,
back to the driveway where my dad
was dispensing sparklers to the neighbors.

And we all ran
out into the street
writing our names, spinning
until we fell down dizzy,
like stars in the grass.

Challenge #4: Scents of Summer. If you were to bottle summertime, what would it smell like? Are there certain scents that you associate with each month of the summer? Or are there certain scents that make different locations distinct? Think about the scents of this summer compared to ones in the past. What is the same? What is different?

With this as your touchpoint, this week notice and be inspired by the scents of summer. Scents are a particularly powerful literary vehicle, and I encourage you to write a poem or a short prose piece that is rich in the sensory details of scent. You can also be inspired to go on an artist date to recapture a familiar scent of summer. Whatever you choose to do, make sure to record in your sketchbook any inspiration, ideas, illustrations, or thoughts—then share here on The Paper Compass.

To the boy Henry Adams, summer was drunken. Among senses, smell was the strongest—smell of the hot pine-woods and sweet fern in the scorching summer noon; of the new mown hay; of the ploughed earth; of box hedges; of peaches, lilacs, syringas; of stables, barns, cow yards; of salt water and low tides on the marshes; nothing came amiss. –The Education of Henry Adams, Henry Adams

Every summer my brother and I take on (what I consider) a semi-imposing literary classic. Last summer it was Faulkner’s Intruder in the Dust, and this summer, The Education of Henry Adams. One of my favorite things about the book is the way that the young Henry’s education begins with the senses, from his learning the color yellow from the sunlight on the yellow floor of the kitchen, to his first memory of taste (a baked apple) and then to the rich scents of summer that distinguish the freedom of his summers in Quincy from the "compulsory learning" of fall and winter in Boston.

Scent is a powerful sense, especially in humans where it is highly connected to memory. Different from other animals, smells, when they are in the human brain are transmitted to two locations. First, the olfactory epithelium sends the scents to the thalamus in the frontal cortex of the brain, which then identifies the smell. But in primates, the scent also goes to the limbic area. This is a primal part of the brain that deals with motivation, emotion, pleasure, and types of memory associated with food.

Thanks to the connection with the limibic area of the brain, we have a phenomenon known as “Proustian Memory” which is the exceptional experience of a scent releasing a flood memories. It is named after the author Marcel Proust who began his novel Swan’s Way with, what could possibly be the most famous scent captured in literary history: a memory spun from the scent of a lime-blossom tea drenched madeleine.

Scents are an integral part of any season. Sometimes they are very prominent, such as the scents we associate with the winter holidays, and sometimes they are more subtle, part of the day to day activities that make the season and location distinct, as Henry Adams captures in the quote above.

When I think about the scents of summer, I think about the smell of ripe peaches, hamburgers on the grill, suntan oil, freshly mowed grass, and the smoky-sulfur scent of sparklers. This last scent is a scent that evokes for me powerful memories of the 4th of July, and my dad, who would always lead the neighborhood in setting off fireworks. There would be an air of excitement, danger, anticipation and exhilaration on those 4th of July nights, and all I have to do is light a sparkler to remember all of it.

All of this is inspiration for the fourth summer challenge: scents of summer. If you were to bottle summertime, what would it smell like? Are there certain scents that you associate with each month of the summer? Or are there certain scents that make different locations distinct? Think about the scents of this summer compared to ones in the past. What is the same? What is different?

With this as your touchpoint, this week notice and be inspired by the scents of summer. Scents are a particularly powerful literary vehicle, and I encourage you to write a poem or a short prose piece that is rich in the sensory details of scent. You can also be inspired to go on an artist date to recapture a familiar scent of summer. Whatever you choose to do, make sure to record in your sketchbook any inspiration, ideas, illustrations, or thoughts—then share here on The Paper Compass.

Special thanks to Taryn McCormick for sharing her image for the post.
The poem Memory is from my chapbook Ophelia's Florida & Other Poems, published in 1999 by PPB Press.