Returning to my Work

It has been a week since I flew back to San Francisco from "down under," that pristine little country of New Zealand where they seem infinitely sensible, and I've spent the time trying to recover from a nasty respiratory illness and deep fatigue.  Happy to say that I'm finally back.
Though I toted parts of my manuscript with me on the trip, I got little done.  And that's o.k.  It was "vacation" after all!  This book I've been working on has been inhabiting my brain for a year a half now, and is not likely to dissipate with a few weeks of disregard.  I think I took the pages of writing with me because, like Joan Didion, there was a certain comfort to be derived from having my words on the page VERY close to me physically ... as though they would continually seep into my brain just because I had them close to the bed where I slept.  And because the words from the pages moved through time and space toward me, my brain could mysteriously and quietly work on them.  When I was in high school I remember putting the notes I'd written for a test under my pillow at night!  And I was always convinced that it worked in the end...
So I am returning to work on the revision of the chapters of this book - ten of them in all - and I am discovering what most writers already know:  the primary challenge is in the revision.  And revision is the hardest thing of all!  It seems that every time I return to a sentence or paragraph, I can think of yet a different way to write the same thing.  And I ask myself :  how long does all this go on?  The answer: until it stops happening.  Cardinal rules I'm trying to keep in mind:  tell unadulterated truth (even though you embellish here and there), keep it clean and honest, write the way you would tell the story, show as much as you can ... keep remembering that someone is sitting there about to read all these words, and try not to bore them.
One of my struggles is that I'm afraid I am too preoccupied with myself.  The subjects of my writing are so familiar and so interesting to me (Burma, Paris, India, and African elephants, for instance), that I forget that I may be circling endlessly and monotonously around the workings of my mind.  I guess part of this is true -- it is my own mind that I'm using to investigate and speak.  And, to give myself some pats on the back here, I think my patterns of thought are actually kind of interesting -- e.g.  looking into the hero's journey, seeing the parallels between literature and real life experience, finding a spiritual path in looking at art, letting go of pain and suffering, and investigating the Buddhist perception of non-duality...  I guess I figure these are thoughts that a number of readers out there might share.  Am I right?  I am looking too at the interconnection between the far past and the present day.  I ended up in India to examine duality and non-duality because I lived a life with a woman who forever set herself apart from the mundaneness of real life.  I went to Burma because I was seeking a deeper understanding of the Buddha's way.  I lingered in art museums in Paris because I was raised by a quixotic, selfish, but gifted painter who was driven to create beauty.  I walked slowly through the Killing Fields in Cambodia because I have been haunted by death.
Am currently struggling with a title for my book, my collection of pieces about travel and self-revelation.  Every single title I come up with is too long and convoluted.  I started out with:  Bowing Camels and Bloody Red Roses.  Then I added to that:  The Journey Out and Back.  Too bland, I realized.  And much later I thought about something like this:  Finding Myself in the Landscape of Memory.  Oh well ... it's still a work in progress.  I love the first part, because the image of the camels is poignant for me, pulled from a time in India where I entered a palatial hotel from the dirty chaotic streets of Rajasthan and colorfully dressed camels bowed to me  The roses are the ones at the grave of Frederic Chopin in Paris, and they conjure my tragic mother and her love of beauty and the color red.  Images are important here, but so are over-arching ideas...
Am reading a book about memoir writing called Handling the Truth, and the writer quotes Patricia Hampl who says, "True memoir is written, like all literature, in an attempt to find not only a self but a world."  I love this.  And as I go back to revise and tune all these pages of memory, I am trying to make sure that there is as much of the world in there as there is myself.  And I am also noticing that my theme of discovery of self through travel is coming through pretty clearly.  And so, as long as I can stand to review my thoughts and purpose, I will be revisiting this work so I can bring it all forth as clearly and honestly as possible.
Happy New Year to all you who arrive here to read and think about this!