Writer, artist, fire lookout and friend of this blog Jean Rukkila wrote this lovely piece about books we can’t find online — the books that we make ourselves.
The first blank book I filled for public consumption began at the locals’ end of the bar in Crown King, Ariz. When I lived up that dirt road I’d noticed how the fellows kept their personal cue sticks in the care of the bartender. ‘Hey Bob,’ I asked the owner, ‘Can I keep a blank book and watercolors with you?’
— Jean Rukkila, from “Not available online: a place for books that breathe”
Jean and I have never met, but as I type this, I’m enjoying imagining her at a lunch counter or a corner table in a bar, or high above the forest watching for the smoke to rise… with a book that she is making of the life that she’s part of, that is part of her. It’s especially the notion of sketches and words together that I love so much. I’m no artist (I have negative drawing talent, seriously, ask Nicola…) and it can be so frustrating, because images can say things that I cannot say with words. I think this is why I’m so drawn to screenwriting — because the end result is words and pictures of people doing, being, living.
As I said, reading Jean’s article makes me see her: or maybe it’s myself I’m imagining, magically gifted with hands that can draw the important things around me — my versions of men playing pool, gurgling ducks, a full glass of beer on a hot afternoon.
Jean, I hope I’ll see one of your books one day. And as much as I am a willing traveler in this land of pixels, I’m glad, like you, that some things aren’t available online.