Process Notes #1

I write this in the middle of a stream before the words erase themselves. The stream is an opening to a river, a branch off the main route, and its waters lead us back to 1942, exactly 80 years ago, for this is the octogintennial year, which I have taken as a calling. The time has come to dust off long-held notebooks, texts, photographs, artifacts, and other documents that begin to trace our trajectory into and through an event horizon which I have only begun to realize extends into the present day. Perhaps I have known this before, but to broach such a topic still gives me pause, and just today I have uncovered a piece of information—a body—though I cannot speak of that in this letter. I admit, despite all the distance that research provides, there is still a part of me that is afraid of each thing I find.

I think fear is okay, and the process of gathering information helps wade the waters and keeps one’s mind preoccupied, though I cannot say that when it comes late at night and I am still turning over these facts they don’t arrest me. I am writing of an old murder that occurred in a small farming town in Iowa and am searching for answers (or, perhaps, more questions) to a mystery that heretofore no one has attempted to solve. Indeed, I have recently found a crucial answer or two which, when I began my research, I was hoping to find. Have discovered that one person rumored to have been implicated in the crime did, in fact, exist in real life outside of the stories and lore that have been passed down to me. I will tell you, reader, he was not easy to find. He wishes to elude and disguise. This discovery involved following a nickname that led to a real name that led to an entire timeline. So, yes—this individual did exist at one time, though their death is unknown. It is quite plausible they committed the act of revenge, and probably received money for it. If I told you that this crime was inside the family, would it surprise you.

It doesn’t surprise me. Tragedies most often come from within rather than without, as the ancient plays would tell us. This is one such performance replaying itself for catharsis or healing after many years of silence, and I suspect that myself and my family are on the receiving end of this or hope that it is possible.

Would you furthermore be surprised if I told you that this event has led to another murder far away from this small town. I will save that for another letter, or it will drift back to us the way timelines collapse into one another.

Thank you, friends, for taking this journey with me. In these letters I will weave connections between family history, documentary poetics, and psychogeography. I will show you the process for the writing, the writing behind the writing. I will take you to my home and where I once lived, which alone takes courage.

With ferociousness and candor,

Julia