By P.C. Zick – @pczick.bsky.social
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, author of The Yearling and Cross Creek and many more books, remains an inspiration to me even though she died a year before I was born. Still, her journey as author and woman who left the north for the south provided a road map for me. I am one of her “human heirs” she writes about in Cross Creek, although she believed the true heirs that owned the land were the beautiful creatures living in nature.
Photo: Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings at her desk on her porch at Cross Creek.
I held a vision of myself as a writer for years. I pictured myself sitting hunched over a manual typewriter, cigarette in my mouth, whiskey glass on the table next to me, words flowing onto the paper. That image remained with me even though I quit smoking and discovered that whiskey fed a hangover, not the muse. And the image remained even though the typewriter of my fantasies sits only in museums.
The image of the manual typewriter has remained with me for three decades. When I first visited Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings home in Cross Creek, Florida, on the screened porch of the preserved home, now a state park, the sight of the manual typewriter where she wrote her most famous books jumped out at me. My vision come to life.
To this day, I keep a postcard photo of her table/desk on my own desk to remind me that I am a writer.
Several years ago, on yet another visit to her home, I did something I’d never done before. I ventured out onto the actual Creek in my kayak.
Photo by P.C. Zick: The postcard I keep framed on my desk still inspires me.
Mostly my husband and I paddled in silence in awe of the drooping live oaks with branches free from leaves but not the Spanish moss which gives rural north Florida its special charm even in the dead of winter. But still flowers bloomed on the banks, birds flew and fed nearby, and fishermen in simple boats lazily floated on the crossroad between two large lakes, Lochloosa and Orange.
Photo by P.C. Zick – Cross Creek from the water
I felt at home as if I’d paddled this water my whole life.
Perhaps the connection I felt cemented itself into my consciousness back in early 2001 when I contemplated leaving my teaching career to write full-time. As I made the decision, I entered a Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings essay contest. The same week I left the classroom for good, I received word I had won first place and received a $500 check for the honor.
That check represented the most money I had ever made for one short piece of writing so far in my short career. It represented all the confirmation I needed to know I had made the right decision.
More than twenty years later, I am even more convinced that the spirit of Ms. Rawlings and her work gave me the inspiration and courage to step out into the world.
Next week – The Human Heirs of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings – the essay that changed my life.
In the meantime, check out the most recent biography of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, The Life She Wished to Live by Ann McCutchan.
My daughter who is well aware of my fondness for the author gave me the book. It’s the most comprehensive book I’ve ever read about the woman who made Cross Creek famous.
As I read it, I am struck by her independence, fierceness, and dedication to her craft.
P.C. ZICK 