Deborah Shepard Books
  • Home
  • Books
    • The Writing Life >
      • Reviews & Interviews
    • Giving Yourself to Life
    • Her Life's Work
    • Translucence
    • Between The Lives
    • Reframing Women
    • Tributes
    • Personal Writings >
      • Conference Paper
      • Lockdown Journal
      • Travel Journal
      • Elegy for a friend
      • Christchurch - Post Quakes
      • On a residency
      • Deborah’s Love Letter to the Women’s Bookshop
      • Deborah's Q & A With Unity Books
  • Writing Memoir
    • Defining Memoir
    • The Participatory Model
    • Tips on Writing and Posting a Story
    • The Value of a Writing Class
    • From writing course to book publication
    • Your Writing Space
    • Writing on a Theme >
      • Window
      • Surviving a Crisis
    • Reviews of Memoir
  • Writers' stories
    • Writer's Stories
    • Covid-19 Stories
    • Writing Guidelines
    • From Being Mentored to Book Publication
  • Events
  • About
    • Testimonials
    • Media
  • What People Say
  • Contact

In the time of coronavirus

A collection of stories submitted by the public on their experience of living through the time of the Coronavirus pandemic.
The coronavirus pandemic has changed our lives. Globally the scale of human suffering as a consequence of Covid-19 has been very great. Everywhere people are now reflecting on what this major and previously unimaginable global crisis means for us, as individuals, living in the 21st century. This forum offers a space for writers to reflect on their experience in Aotearoa and to consider questions such as: What might we need to remember and preserve? What has been my experience, my observations, how might my priorities have shifted, in a good way, as a result of the lockdowns? If you would like to contribute to the re-collective effort through any of the following life writing formats — journalling, nature writing, memoir, commentary, poetry, notes on work in progress during lockdown… — please make initial contact through my contact page. Next prepare a page of A4 writing, starting in the present moment and moving where you need to into the recent past and forwards from that point, with a title, brief bio, photo (optional) and your contribution will be added to the repository of important writings flowering in this space.

“Securing the memory of COVID-19 is the minimum we owe to each other in the aftermath of this catastrophe.”

Richard Horton, “Covid-19 and the Ethics of memory", The Lancet , 6 June 2020
Picture

Apples and Pebbles by Abby Letteri

20/9/2021

0 Comments

 
Picture













​Abby Letteri is a writer based in Wellington and on the Kapiti Coast. Her first book,
down they forgot: a memoir, was published in early 2021, between lockdowns.
 
During the first lockdown, I walked my dogs up the road most days to stretch their legs and clear away the cobwebs. We’d take a left out of the gate and follow the trees until the canopy gave way to sky, to where the road dips down to a one lane bridge, then up again into the narrowing of the Gorge. Just before we’d break free of the trees, we’d pass an old farm gate made of wood and covered with delicate mosses, set into the bush. It was one of those quiet gates that holds its tongue and tells no secrets.
​
During the second week of lockdown, a basket appeared on a chunk of wood just outside the quiet gate. It was old, formed of two-toned wicker, brown and cream, with a braided handle, and filled to the brim with apples and walnuts. A hand-lettered sign told me to please help myself.
The apples were small but amazingly sweet and juicy. I ate one as I walked up the road and pocketed another for the old pony. This ritual became the new routine. I pocketed the occasional walnut, too, delighting in cracking it open after dinner and eating the sweet meats with a bit of cheese. There was something about the basket, the unencumbered offering, that made me feel more at home than I had in years.

On the fifth day, I left an offering in return: a perfect crimson leaf from my little maple tree. Another day, a small beach pebble in the shape of a heart. I placed these treasures in the bottom of the basket and felt a quickening of connection.

Towards the end of the second week of lockdown, the basket was gone. In its place was a note asking whoever had taken it to please return the basket. It wasn’t an angry note, it seemed to accept the possibility that the contents might have made a difference to a hungry household. But something about the theft got my hackles up. All the way to the swing bridge and back, past the reserve and the lone white horse in the big field, I kept turning it over in my mind. Someone had pulled over, snatched up the basket—and with it the day’s harvest of apples and walnuts—and taken off. Casual and callous, just like that.

The following morning, while rummaging in the shed, I spied a cheap woven basket festooned with thick cobwebs and surrounded by mouse droppings, its trim painted pale pink. I dusted it off, gave it a blast with the hose and set it outside in the sun to air. By the time the dogs and I were ready to walk, the basket was dry. I scribbled a note on a piece of card, and we headed up the road.
When we got to the quiet gate, the stump was still empty. I put the card on the stump and placed the pink basket on top. It was a poor substitute for the beautiful old brown hamper, but perhaps it would be a vessel good-enough for the harvest.

Up the Gorge, the white horse was grazing by the fence and whickered a soft greeting as we passed. I stopped to pluck him a handful of the long grass growing on the verge. By the swing bridge, we were overtaken by a mob of sheep followed by the farmer with his grinning dogs riding shotgun on a quad bike. Hens were out in the grassy paddock, scratching under trees, and the donkeys, Alice and Victor, lifted their heads and followed us with their intelligent eyes. A kingfisher, plump in his blue-green cloak and rosy waistcoat, perched on the quiet gate.

The animals reminded me how often I get it wrong with people, how much easier it is to communicate through an indirect exchange of apples and pebbles. Lockdown has its consolations. Heading home, I felt an indescribable lightness. It may have been joy.

0 Comments
    WRITING GUIDELINES

    Archives

    February 2022
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    January 2021
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020

    Authors

    All
    Abby Letteri
    Anissa Ljanta
    Anita Arlov
    Annabel Schuler
    Anna Fomison
    Brian Sorrell
    Catherine Moorhead
    Cath Koa Dunsford
    Cynthia Smith
    David Arrowsmith
    David Hill
    Delis Pitt
    Diane Brown
    Edna Heled
    Elizabeth McRae
    Estelle Mendelsohn
    Eva De Jong
    Faith Cleverley
    Fiona Kidman
    Fredrika Van Elburg
    Gregory O'Brien
    Helene Connor
    Jane Bissell
    Janet De Witt
    Janine
    Jeanette De Heer
    Jicca Smith
    John Adams
    Julie Ryan
    Keith Woodley
    Leigh Burrell
    Liz March
    Liz Wilson
    Lora Mountjoy
    Margo Knightbridge
    Marilyn Eales
    Mary Elsmore-Neilson
    Megan Hutching
    Michelanne Forster
    Paddy Richardson
    Pamela Gordon
    Pat Backley
    Philip Temple
    Piers Davies
    Rex McGregor
    Robyn Welsh
    Roger Horrocks
    Ruth Bonita
    Ruth Busch
    Sandy Plummer
    Silvia
    Siobhan Harvey
    Sue Berman
    Sue Fitchett
    Sylvia Nagl
    Tessa Duder
    Tony Eyre
    Trevor M Landers
    Yvonne Van Dongen

    RSS Feed

Deborah thanks Rangimarie Kelly and Pikau Digtal for website design and artist Karen Jarvis for her image ‘Writers at the Devonport Library,’ (2023)
Writing Memoir
Defining Memoir
The Participatory Model
Tips on Writing and Posting a Story
​From Writing Course to Book Publication
Your Writing Space
​Writing on a Theme
Reviews of Memoir
Writers Stories
​
Events
​About
Testimonials
What People Say

Media
​Contact
Copyright © 2023 Deborah Shepard
  • Home
  • Books
    • The Writing Life >
      • Reviews & Interviews
    • Giving Yourself to Life
    • Her Life's Work
    • Translucence
    • Between The Lives
    • Reframing Women
    • Tributes
    • Personal Writings >
      • Conference Paper
      • Lockdown Journal
      • Travel Journal
      • Elegy for a friend
      • Christchurch - Post Quakes
      • On a residency
      • Deborah’s Love Letter to the Women’s Bookshop
      • Deborah's Q & A With Unity Books
  • Writing Memoir
    • Defining Memoir
    • The Participatory Model
    • Tips on Writing and Posting a Story
    • The Value of a Writing Class
    • From writing course to book publication
    • Your Writing Space
    • Writing on a Theme >
      • Window
      • Surviving a Crisis
    • Reviews of Memoir
  • Writers' stories
    • Writer's Stories
    • Covid-19 Stories
    • Writing Guidelines
    • From Being Mentored to Book Publication
  • Events
  • About
    • Testimonials
    • Media
  • What People Say
  • Contact