Guides Gone Wild
Guides Gone Wild
Thirteen Years of Low and Local (and a Lifetime of Lore): Amy Wight Chapman, Author and Hiker
My guest today is Amy Wight Chapman, aka @hikelowandlocal and the author of a beautiful family memoir, Just Like Glass.
Amy inspires me for so many reasons - the biggest, hugest reason being that she honors herself. She is creative, and knows she enjoys moving her body, so she keeps those two flames flickering at all times, even when she’s challenged by all the same things the rest of us are: family, injury, work, all the obligations that suck up our time and energy whether we want them to or not…
Amy’s book Just Like Glass: A Family Memoir is a one or two sitting affair, because you get sucked in from the start. Having grown up in a stoic New England family myself, Ruth’s approach to what was probably the biggest tragedy of her life reminded me so much of women I knew in my childhood.
I laughed, I cried, I told everyone I know who’s in a book group about this book, because this family really got to me. And I’m going to leave it at that, so you head to your favorite book store and request this title, if it’s not already carried, or head to amywchapman.com and hit the Buy Now button to order it directly from the Bethel Historical Society like I did.
Be sure to stick around until the end to be completely and utterly impressed by Amy’s movement streak. I’m telling you, this is the episode you need to be reminded to honor yourself in all the smallest ways, it makes such a huge difference!
Get to know Amy and the places she loves!:
Order Just Like Glass: A Family Memoir from the Bethel Historical Museum!
AmyWChapman.com Substack
Museums of the Bethel Historical Society (Bethel, ME)
Buck’s Ledge Community Forest (Woodstock, ME)
Moody Mountain (Woodstock, ME)
Community Concepts (ME)
Maggie’s Nature Park (Greenwood, ME)
Lapham Loop (ME)
Welcome to the Guides Gone Wild podcast. What is Guides Gone Wild, you ask? This is where you'll fill your ears and minds with the stories of everyday, extraordinary women who will inspire you to take your outdoor adventure game to the next level. Whether you're starting your journey from the couch or the trailhead, this is the place for you. So let's get a little wild.
Jen:Welcome to Guides Gone Wild. This is your host, jen, wishing you a happy Pride Month. And do you know what I'm least proud of right now? The fact that it has taken me literally months to get this episode up for you all. Yikes. But we try to show ourselves some grace over here at Guides Gone Wild. And speaking of grace, my guest today is Amy White Chapman, aka High Glow, and Local and the author of a beautiful family memoir, just Like Glass.
Jen:Amy inspires me for so many reasons, the biggest, hugest reason being that she honors herself, she is creative and she knows she enjoys moving her body. So she keeps those two flames flickering at all times, even when she's challenged by all the same things the rest of us are Family, injury, work, all the obligations that suck up our time and energy, whether we want them to or not. Amy's book is a one or two sitting affair because you get sucked in from the get-go. Trust me, having grown up in kind of a stoic New England family myself, ruth's approach to what was probably the biggest tragedy of her life reminded me so much of women I knew in my childhood. I laughed, I cried my eyes out a couple times. I told everyone I know who's in a book group about this book, because this family really got to me and I'm going to leave it at that.
Jen:But so you head on over to your favorite bookstore right now and request this title if it's not already being carried, or go to amywchapmancom, hit the buy now button and order it directly from the Bethel Historical Society, like I did. Or, if you insist, use the evil empire. They have it available. You can buy it. It. You should get it. Don't wait for it to come to your library. Buy it, read it, donate it to your library. It's an amazing book. Also, be sure to stick around and be completely and utterly impressed by Amy's movement streak. I'm telling you this is the episode you need to be reminded to honor yourself in all the smallest ways. It makes such a huge difference. So let's do this. Here's my long overdue conversation with Amy White Chapman, author and inspiring hiker. All right, well, amy White Chapman, good morning Welcome to.
Jen:Guides Gone Wild. Thank you for joining me so early this morning. Welcome to Guides Gone Wild. Thank you for joining me so early this morning.
Amy Wight Chapman:Thanks so much for inviting me.
Jen:Oh my gosh. Well, I was excited. I shouldn't be excited, but I was excited to see that you just had your knee replaced because I'm like all right, well, this is going to slow this woman down for a couple of weeks at least so that I'll have the opportunity to wrangle her in for a little conversation.
Jen:So, just as a little bit of background, amy has a very fun Instagram called High Glow and Local that I've been following for a long time.
Jen:She's based in the let me see if I get this right the town of Greenwood, the village of Locks Mills, which is about half an hour from our place in Gilead, and I just love the fact. I got drawn into the fact that you were doing lots of, like, small local hikes I shouldn't even use the diminutive because they're just fun local hikes that some of which I didn't know about before. So I've been learning a lot about some new places to check out from following you and just have been inspired by the fact that you just get out there all the time and just do stuff and you take pictures and you document it, and I was like that's pretty awesome and I've, I've, I've taken on that inspiration for my. I'm doing a fundraising hike-a-thon right now and I decided, instead of doing big hikes, I was going to get my miles by doing lots and lots of little local hikes. And it's been quite lovely because I like doing that anyway, and why not, you know?
Jen:tout it out to the world and tell people about it.
Jen:Yeah, exactly Exactly. And there's so many great trail systems up near you, so it's like, why wouldn't you and you have the box ledge right in your backyard? It seems like so literally in the summertime.
Amy Wight Chapman:It is literally in my backyard.
Jen:That's amazing. That's amazing, and Amy just wrote a book, so I want to talk a little bit about that too. So I'm going to actually stop talking. What I would love to hear, because I thought, for sure, you were like a lifer, grew up in Maine, but you actually grew up in Connecticut and were a summer person, essentially Right, is that correct?
Amy Wight Chapman:That is essentially correct. But I always have to point out that my father's family was in Bethel for generations and my mother grew up in Bangor. So my parents both went to the University of Maine, but they were eight years apart in age so they didn't know each other there and they both moved to Connecticut and that's where they met. So they spent their entire marriage trying to figure out how to get the family back to Maine.
Jen:Yeah, and well, and you are now probably answering that question all the time, or telling that all the time, because you do work at the Bethel Historical Society, correct, that's right.
Amy Wight Chapman:Yeah, I work there. My son is the only other employee and he's the director and I'm his assistant and I tell people that you know he's my boss and he's been training for that role since the day he was born.
Jen:I was going to say I hope you're keeping it in line.
Amy Wight Chapman:He has extensive local cred as well, on both sides his dad's side and my side. So you know, we can look out the windows at the Historical Society and say, yeah, well, will's fifth grade grandfather donated the common to the town of Bethel and yeah oh, my god, that's awesome.
Jen:That's, that's very cool. So tell me a little bit about your childhood, because you know I don't want you to do any spoilers, because the memoir I haven't read it yet, but it's been on my list and it has amazing reviews and I think it's going to be an amazing read, regardless of how much I know in advance. But I do know that obviously your family, your family and growing up is what you talk about in that in the book. So tell me a little bit about, like kind of your outdoor perspective as you were growing up.
Amy Wight Chapman:Okay. Well, I have to say that technically the book takes place in mom, mostly in the year before I was born. When I set out to, you know, dabble in memoir, I thought I don't really have a terribly interesting story, but my mom really does. So the setting of the memoir is largely our summer camp on North Pond in Woodstock, just one town south of Greenwood. My mom and dad had four kids within the first six years.
Amy Wight Chapman:They were married, all born in the 1940s, and in 1954, they bought a lot on North Pond and started building a summer camp there to spend the summer. And in the spring of 1958, just a couple of weeks before they were ready to head to camp, my dad died suddenly of a heart attack and my mom packed the kids into the car and came to camp for the summer because she told me she didn't know what else to do. So the camp was really our touchstone, and so she didn't realize she was pregnant with me until the end of the summer. So that was a big surprise. So I like to say that I was spending time at camp before I was even born and then the following summer we were there. I was three months old and spent that entire summer there, and there's never been a summer in my life that I wasn't on North Pond in Woodstock yeah that's.
Jen:I mean, it's not cool, obviously that your siblings were all kind of traumatized at that age, but I did pick apart the fact that that was kind of the behind the story and I'm like what an interesting kind of jumping off point to talk about kind of all the downstream you know effects of that in that era and also what a way to hone in on the campus being a place that hopefully brought healing to your whole family and and you were a little fun surprise, who was super duper cute, because I think you just had put some pictures up online when you were a little and I'm like oh my God, look at her little face.
Amy Wight Chapman:Actually, I think that you might have been seeing my daughter's birthday was it was two days ago and she is her baby. Pictures are often mistaken for mine.
Jen:Yeah, I was gonna say she's, she is definitely your mini me. Then if that's the case because how far freaking cute was she Anyway. So you spend a lot of time at camp, what, like? Tell me a little bit about, like you know what? I mean, I can kind of imagine, maybe what you guys all did there, but you know what kind of drew you into the fact that you just you, I mean you spend a ton of time outside, it seems like, and where you know, where did that kind of love come from? It sounds like maybe from both your parents, definitely, yep.
Amy Wight Chapman:My dad was. I believe he was a registered Maine guide. He was a serious rock hound. He grew up in Bethel just spending all kinds of time outside. Rock hound. He grew up in Bethel just spending all kinds of time outside.
Amy Wight Chapman:He graduated from Gould Academy in 1930, and he went off to study engineering at the University of Maine. But his mother was also a widow at a pretty young age and they didn't have a lot of money. They ran a small restaurant in Bethel. So he went to school for I think the first two years and then he had to drop out for two years and he went to work in a logging camp for Marsh Hastings, who was kind of a legendary logging contractor back in the day in Maine. So he took two years off from school and worked, I think, basically as a clerk. He wasn't doing a lot of the actual logging work but he worked in the camps in the winter and in the summer different places and then went back to school and graduated. So he was a real outdoors kind of guy.
Amy Wight Chapman:And they were living in Connecticut when the first four kids were born and my mom would tell me that you know that some of the other kids in the neighborhood. Their parents would prefer they not play with my siblings, because my siblings had things like rifles and knives and they were chopping muskrats.
Jen:They were the fun kids. Yeah, that's hilarious. And so when you, you know, kind of tell me a little bit about your first memories of being up in North Pond, because it's so beautiful up there and I saw on your substack you were kind of referenced Were you boating out there? Were you guys? Was there no road at the time? Or did you just kind of like, tell me a little bit about the camp and you know what that, how that evolved?
Amy Wight Chapman:Okay, so when they first, when my parents first came to spend time on North Pond, they rented a camp at the far end of the pond from Ada Ballantyne, and she was also a widow and had this place at the end of camp that she had pretty much built herself I think it was a log cabin still there and they rented that for a couple of weeks, for two or three summers, and the last summer that they rented it a rough road had been put in on the east shore of the pond because they were doing logging down there and they were they'd finished harvesting and they were going to sell the lots. And the lots were sold pretty much on their value as wood lots, even though they were right, they were had shore frontage, they were right on the pond. But I remember my mom telling me that we got our lot for 200 because it had hemlock on it and the one next door was more expensive because it had pine.
Jen:So in 1954,.
Amy Wight Chapman:They bought their lot for $200. And they chose it because it has a huge boulder about the size of a small pickup truck right at the edge of the shore and you can jump across. Well, we have a bridge now, but you can jump across from the shore to the rock, and my sister, who was about seven at the time, I think, called it Sunny Rock.
Jen:Oh, yeah, it's interesting. I'm trying to. I'm like picturing in my mind the east shore of that pond and yeah, there's some pretty dramatic rock situations over on that side, I would think right, definitely.
Amy Wight Chapman:Well, yeah, yes, buck's Ledge is. You know, as I said, it's literally in our backyard at camp. The trail that goes up from the man road is actually on property that we own, but the cliff rises above the East shore, so a lot of rocks, you know, back in the day, back way back, tumbled down and ended up at the edge of the water.
Jen:Yeah, yeah, that's. It's a very cool spot, are there? Are there lots on both sides of the road on that side?
Amy Wight Chapman:or is it really just on the?
Jen:one side Cause.
Amy Wight Chapman:Well, there never were, and my mom had an opportunity to buy the lot directly behind us and she said nobody will ever build up there because they don't have access to the water. Well, now there's a house up there, so there are, I believe, just two houses on the opposite side of the road now.
Jen:Yeah, I would think that would be virtually impossible.
Amy Wight Chapman:Yeah, most of the water and everything else.
Jen:Yeah, yeah, that's cool. So do you live in that house now At?
Amy Wight Chapman:the camp, yeah, we spend. It's not winterized, it's. I like to say it's the last real camp on the man road. It's ramshackle and it was, as my mother always said, was built by teenagers, because my dad passed away partway through the construction and my brothers finished it and it's never. My mom also used to say it's never been finished. So a lot of the camps on that road are not what we would call camps anymore and people could live in them year round. But ours is very much just a summer camp and we're down there from about Memorial Day through mid-September and then we live the rest of the year three miles away in Locks Mills.
Jen:I know that's a great commute. Do you have some of your siblings still in the area so that you get to share the experience still?
Amy Wight Chapman:Yeah, so there are five of us. I have three older brothers and an older sister, and my brother Steve was actually the. We all grew up thinking we were going to move to Maine as soon as we could, and my brother Steve was the first to move up here and he and his wife Peggy purchased the Sunday River Inn when they got out of when Steve got out of the Air Force, so they were still in their 20s and they ran that for, I think, about 35 years, and so Steve still lives in Sunday River. We lost Peggy a couple of years ago. And my my second brother, greg, lives in Vermont, which I always tell people is the only other state I would consider living in. My brother Andy is still in Connecticut and my sister Leslie came to the University of Maine for college and then she and her husband eventually bought the Mount Vernon Country Store and they ran that for a long time and they still live in Mount Vernon.
Jen:Oh wow, that's cool. I mean, obviously it's. I'm sorry to hear that you've lost one of your sisters because that's very difficult, but that's great that everybody's still New England and still probably making the trek up every time chance they get to to share in the beauty of North Pond, which really is like it's pretty spectacular. I have to say that I would think that in you know, over in Brian Pond Lake, christopher, whatever they call it, it's not called, or Bryant Pond, I guess.
Amy Wight Chapman:Bryant Pond or Lake Christopher, either one. And yes, and I should point out that Christopher Bryant was my husband's ancestor.
Jen:Yeah, this whole conversation has already been riddled with all the last names that I see all over town all the time, Right. So yeah, your roots run deep, that is for sure. So let's talk about when did you start kind of the hiking habit? Because I mean, you did 100 days last year and you obviously were working on a bum knee. I assume that that it didn't come out of nowhere to get your knee replaced. So tell me, when that started, and why?
Amy Wight Chapman:Well, I've been hiking a little bit my whole life and and the Moody Mountain, which is the mountain that Buck's Ledge is on, I grew up just calling it the mountain and you know we would get up in the morning and say you know, can we pack a picnic and go up the mountain from camp, because we were just, and it was half a mile, very steep, from that side.
Amy Wight Chapman:And we would just run up there all the time, spend a lot of time up on the mountain, and I hiked intermittently all of my adult life.
Amy Wight Chapman:But I was also not an athlete. So, to put it mildly, I was that kid in gym class that was the last one picked back in the 60s, when that's how they used to choose teams, and I was the one that tried to avoid physical activity at all costs, and so it was actually 20, let's see 2012. I was working for in a preschool in South Paris for community concepts, and they decided to do a fitness challenge, and so they gave us all a calendar, all the employees got a calendar and you could sign up, and the idea was to get 30 minutes minimum of 30 minutes of exercise on as many days as you could for the. I think it was a six-week challenge and there was probably some kind of prize at the end, but anyway, I just I had been, you know, hiking a little and walking a little and doing some biking, but I thought I'm going to try to do this every day for the six weeks. So I did, and I started it on April 7th 2012. And I have not missed a day since then.
Jen:So I just passed my 13th anniversary.
Amy Wight Chapman:I've been through COVID and a knee replacement and managed to keep it going.
Jen:Holy cow, yeah, so I didn't even realize that it was going that deep, because I mean, I've been watching your hiking posts by, so that's pretty 30 minutes every day.
Amy Wight Chapman:Yeah, and it's usually more like an hour and I'm you know I miss it if I can't get the full hour in, but 30 minutes counts.
Jen:That's all, of course. Yeah, I mean any. In my, in my book, any forward movement counts. So, right, awesome, that's awesome. I always, I always said anything counts, so that's awesome.
Amy Wight Chapman:That's awesome and I always I always said anything counts. So you know, if I have a cold I can do 30 minutes of gentle yoga and that that fills the bill and that worked. When I had COVID. I did some nice slow walks the day I had my knee surgery. I got up an hour early so I could go on the exercise bike before we went down for the surgery. And then you know, they have you up and walking and doing these exercises that take 20 minutes three times a day right from the next day.
Jen:So Right, right, and you were probably sweating more than you do on a regular walk. I had knee surgery once upon a time myself. Pt is it's pretty, pretty intense there at the beginning. Yeah, that's great, that's so good. Yeah, that's funny. I yeah, I've stacked wood One of the times. I had COVID, so I can appreciate that. It's like you know what. I can't be around anybody anyway. So I'm productive, so that's great.
Amy Wight Chapman:I had no idea definitely my favorite, and it never occurred to me that you can hike in the winter in Maine. You know, I thought hiking was something you did in the summertime when the ground was bare, and it was like a revelation to find that. You know, you either put on your snowshoes and work a little harder, or you wait for somebody else to put on their snowshoes and work a little harder, and then you just put on your spikes and follow them. Yeah, yeah, oh, my gosh.
Jen:That's funny. So that was not, that wasn't part of your jam initially. That's interesting to know, cause I mean I do feel like there's so many people that kind of especially, you know, if you have a dog or something, they're out and about. And you know I there's very few times that I've showed up at any of the little trail systems up there that they haven't already been tromped down by somebody. So that's great, probably you half the time. So because you're, because you're doing them all, when did you decide to start? Was the documenting? I can't even remember when I started following you, but when you document the hikes that you do with the pictures and stuff, when did you start doing that, like as a kind?
Amy Wight Chapman:of regular practice. Oh gosh. Well, it was probably, I want to say maybe seven or eight years ago. It was probably, I want to say maybe seven or eight years ago. But the hike low and local thing came at the beginning of the pandemic, when the AMC was telling people not to go off on these extreme hikes and put themselves and their rescuers at risk. And they were saying so hike low and local. And I thought, well, that's been my jam for years, so I just took it over.
Jen:That's funny. No, that's, that's great, because I think that's when I did like Maggie's Nature Park and some of those you know where you could like see other people coming from a mile away and avoid them, and that's great. Random sidebar question what is your favorite place to go hiking in your general vicinity, like what's? The place you come to all the time. Is it Bucks Ledge? Yes, Bucks.
Amy Wight Chapman:Ledge Community Forest and now that you know it used to be, there was a half mile up and a half mile down and that's what you could do, but now you can do a loop of two miles or three miles or four and a half miles, you know you can. You can hike over to the Woodstock Elementary School, you know you can. You can easily do a six or seven mile hike if you don't have bad knees, in the Bucks Ledge Community Forest and depending on what time of the day you go, you might not see anybody, and it's just my favorite. I love everything about the trails there. I love what they've done to. You know, build new trails and it's the best.
Jen:Yeah, I was wondering how much of that was there by, just, you know, the local folks kind of tramping on things that probably were like indigenous trails once upon a time, because there are quite a few, I mean, there's like the. I've never gone up the Mann Roadside, I've always come in just from the parking lot off of 26.
Jen:So I've gone, you know, up and around and done little loops and tried to check out as much as I could, but I did wonder how much of that was already kind of happening, kind of like over at Bethel Community Forest.
Amy Wight Chapman:You know, I know that people were using the main trails there as access before it became an official conservation space, right, and I had never been to Lapham Ledge, which is another part of Moody Mountain, until just a few years ago, before it was the community forest. But I think the Lapham Ledge Lapham Loop was one of the first trails that the Woodstock Conservation Commission put in and but there were already obviously already trails there, because people who lived in Bryant Pond would talk about going up to Lapham Ledge all the time, and you know it's so. It's so close to Bucks. It's actually on the same mountain. You can go from one to the other and do a loop hike in about an hour, but they're completely different views. Lappum has a southeast view and so you get sunrises. One of my favorite things to do is to hike up there and, you know, catch the sunrise on Lappum, but then sunsets on Buck's Lodge are amazing, yeah yeah, though it's so true and it's, you know, like every hike around there that has any view, that's short, you know.
Jen:You get your heart gets pumping, man going up that thing. Oh yes, If you go up the backside to the Moody Summit, that's a about a third of a mile of you know it, it's kind of the roost hike. I'm like, yeah, it's a short hike but you're pretty much because you're coming out to a view that sees other mountains, so you're literally walking uphill the whole time. Don't be alarmed. So tell me a little bit about, just to digress to the knee situation, because, as somebody who has definitely got some arthritis and random stuff happening in the lower half of my body that has been impacting my ability to get out and do all the fun things, you know how did that evolve and how are you feeling about? Like what made you decide to finally pull the trigger? Was it decided for you? You know, I want to hear a little bit about that and what you see ahead of you on the rehab side for those of us who are probably right behind you, of you on the rehab side for those of us who are probably right behind you.
Amy Wight Chapman:Okay, so it's probably been about five years since I started noticing that, while I wasn't having any trouble going uphill, going downhill was getting more and more awkward and painful. Yeah, I started using hiking poles and they helped a lot and I was still able to hike, obviously because I hiked right up until a few days before my surgery. But I guess a little over a year ago I went and had some x-rays done because it was getting worse and you know it was definitely impacting my ability to go distances. And I felt kind of funny saying to the surgeon you know, I know people come in here and saying I just want to be able to walk without pain, and I'm coming in here and saying, well, right now I can hike three to five miles, but I want to be able to hike five to 10. Yeah, I don't know that's, that's a valid, a valid thing to want.
Amy Wight Chapman:And so they, they showed me the x-rays and you know it's bone on bone and they're like and these are bone spurs and these are the things that are clicking when you're, when you move your knee. And so it was time I did cortisone shots, a couple rounds of cortisone shots and they helped for, oh, maybe about eight weeks, and you have to wait 12 weeks to have them. So, right, right. So I just decided I would do it. My brother had gotten my, my oldest brother, who is 81, had gotten new knees. It'll be three years this summer and we were hiking together and I was realizing he can hike circles around me and you know he's 80 years old.
Amy Wight Chapman:So that was a big, a big inspiration for wanting to get it done myself too, and I think it's. I think it's going to be great. Yeah, you know it's going to take a little while. I can't hike for 12 weeks after surgery, but I can understand why now. First I was like, no, maybe I'll push that. But you know, when you're hiking and you're trying to lift your knee up over things or down over things, it's you want it to be solid.
Jen:So Right, right, yeah, cause you said before we got on the air that you had been pushing it a little bit too hard yesterday and was definitely feeling the repercussions of that even while you were hiking, yeah, yeah, or walking what I was doing was walking on the man road yesterday with my grand dog who had been spending a week and a half with us.
Amy Wight Chapman:He just went home yesterday. So I was walking on the man road with him and I would go like a mile and then the next day I'd say let's try a mile and a half. And so I increased from two to two and a half to three in about four days and that was probably a little too much.
Jen:Yeah, yeah, might be time, but I do. My mom got her hip replaced, probably at a similar age, after waiting way too long and, you know, messing up all the other joints downstream of her hip.
Jen:So I'm like good for you, for just, you know, taking the bull by the horns especially, I would imagine, with the spurs, that was probably not getting not going to be a good situation. So, yeah, that's good. Well, I'm looking forward to seeing you back out on the trail, since you're already doing three miles on your, you know, five day old knee. I knee, I can't.
Amy Wight Chapman:I know it's three and a half weeks, you'll be back out there in no time.
Jen:I'm really hoping for a good hiking summer because I'm having the other one done in.
Amy Wight Chapman:October. So let's do one in mud season and one in hunting season, because those are my least favorite times to be out in the woods anyway.
Jen:Right, right, right right. Oh, that's good, good, good planning ahead. I love that. And they're both in the same deductible year, so there you go, boom.
Amy Wight Chapman:That's true, yeah get it done.
Jen:So tell me a little bit about. Let's talk about your writing now, because obviously the exciting thing that's happening besides your brand new knee is your brand new memoir that you are have released and are touring around talking to folks about right now, which is getting very well received, as I said before. So it's called Just Like Glass, a family memoir. Tell me a little bit about you. Know you've been writing for a long time, I know, for the Bethel Citizen. You just started a sub stack because the Bethel Citizen had the gall to go down to bi-weekly instead of weekly. So you've been writing for quite a while, but this is like a little bit different. So tell me, kind of, what led up to making the decision to do this. Or was it something that you had been doing and decided to that it got to a point where you wanted to share it with the world?
Amy Wight Chapman:Oh boy. Well, I tell everyone it took 16 years to write this book, but the truth is it really took about 60 because I told my kindergarten teacher, mrs Abercrombie, in the you know, what do you want to be when you grow up? Conversation that I was going to be an author.
Amy Wight Chapman:So that's awesome, it's a long time to get there, but my mom died in 2004. And it was not too long after that I think it was 2008, that I emailed my four siblings and I said I've got this writing project in mind and I'm going to need a lot of help from you because I'm writing about a time when I wasn't even born. So I need all of your memories. And they all said sure, so I started barraging them with questions about you know, their life early before my dad died and the year that our dad died and what happened afterwards and how they felt about things. And so we did that for maybe a month or so in 2008. And I did some writing and then put it aside. And then again, I think about four years later, I revived it and we actually went on a sibling retreat and I brought what I had written so far and everybody was, yeah, we're okay with this.
Amy Wight Chapman:My brothers were funny. They really didn't care about the fact that I was assigning emotions and and dialogue and all this stuff, but they wanted to make sure that I got the make and model of the car and the outboard motor, so they had to hash that out between them. Well, you know, really, was that car a 52? I thought it was a 53. Oh my god, that's hilarious.
Amy Wight Chapman:So then I um it was last year at about this time, a little earlier than this um, I realized it had been. Well, tomorrow will be 21 years since the day my mom died. And when I thought, you know, 20 years since she died, I really need to get this done. And and it was mostly done. So I took a week off from work and basically just wrote and wrote and wrote and almost finished it. And then I had another long weekend at camp when it was raining and cold and we had moved down to camp kind of early I think this was early June and we had a cold, rainy week and my husband said it's miserable, here, I'm going home. And I said, well, I'm going to stay here and write. So yeah, you're like perfect.
Amy Wight Chapman:I stayed in a recliner with my laptop and finished the damn thing for the most part, although you know there turned out to be a lot more and I had great incentive to get it done because my son, will, was saying we can publish this through the Historical Society because we publish local books, and I was like okay.
Jen:Yeah, that's why I don't own it yet, because I refuse to buy anything from Amazon, and I was like you know what? I'm going to wait till I'm in Bethel or like in Norway, or somewhere where they're actually selling it at an actual place that is actually locally owned, and then I'm going to buy it.
Amy Wight Chapman:So they have it at True North and at the Greenwood Town office.
Jen:Oh, that's good to know. Yeah, awesome. So I assume that some of the like is a lot of what kind of preempted all the questions to your siblings? I assume there's like some they didn't want to upset our mom.
Amy Wight Chapman:So they didn't ask a lot of questions and therefore, you know, although I don't think that they were ever told not to ask questions or not to talk about him, they just felt funny about it. And the interesting thing is that my mother was the oldest of four kids and she lost her mom when she was 10. And her father pretty much explicitly said we're not going to talk about her. And I don't think she ever intended for that to be how her own kids felt, but by default they were just like you know, we don't want to upset her and my brothers were teenagers, young teenagers, and old enough to know that it would be very upsetting to her.
Amy Wight Chapman:So, but I was in a different position because I was raised in a lot of ways as an only child with a single mom, and we did a lot of talking. We were in Connecticut and, you know, a few times a year we were driving back and forth to Maine and you had six hours in the car and there was a lot of conversation. So I asked a lot of questions that I don't think that they felt comfortable asking yeah, and, but I never wrote anything down. And then, when I got to writing it down, I was surprised at how much I remembered of what she had said and yeah, and even how I could piece together what she felt Right.
Jen:Yeah, no, yeah, I mean because you were essentially an only child, and when you weren't being an only child, you were being a youngest child, and they're always the shitsters anyway. So that's great, yeah, it's so interesting, and I can't even imagine how difficult that would have been for your siblings, given the ages that they were, you know, and of course it was. I think it's just a sign of the times as much as anything, the fact that everybody was just kind of brushing it, brushing it under the rug and, you know, putting on a game face and pretending everything was fine. Were they, did they tap into some of that? I mean, I assume they must have, or were they comfortable tapping into some of that Because of?
Amy Wight Chapman:how they felt yeah, yeah like they definitely were.
Amy Wight Chapman:they. They wrote me long answers and it's funny, um, we have a token extrovert, my oldest brother and two, three, counting me pretty confirmed introverts, and then I have another brother who is probably in the middle, but they each revealed themselves in different ways. I mean even even my most introverted brother, who's the most reserved with his feelings. I would send him a chapter and he would tell me that he cried all the way through it and I would just think, oh my gosh, for him to even say that. So a lot, of, a lot of their responses were different, because some were very concrete as I said you know that that car was a 1952. And some were really revealing and emotional.
Amy Wight Chapman:And it wasn't until last spring it was probably a little, yeah, a little over a year ago that I realized, instead of just paraphrasing their responses and, you know, putting their words into the text that I was writing, which was mostly in the first person in my mother's voice, I really wanted to include their actual words. So I sent them an email and I said this is a big ask, but can I have sections of the book that are actually your words in your own voices? And they all said sure. So I really think that that added so much to the book.
Amy Wight Chapman:So I have four co-authors in the book and I'm really glad that I made that choice and that they were OK with it.
Jen:Yeah, absolutely. You know, I bet that there's, and I don't know if this was part of your motivation, but I bet there's been. You know a lot of continued healing that's come from just being able to kind of, you know, like blah talk about.
Amy Wight Chapman:Yeah, exactly, and they've said that. And yeah, and one of my sisters-in-law said that too. You know that this was helping my brother heal after 65 years. Yeah.
Jen:Did it? Were you surprised by anything, whether it's like a story that you'd never heard before or a reaction from any of your siblings, that just seemed completely not the way you had kind of had them defined in your mind Like were there any big surprises? That came as part of the process?
Amy Wight Chapman:Well, in spite of being a lot younger than all of them because they ranged from 9 to 15 when I was born I was really close to each of them. To 15 when I was born, I was really close to each of them. So I can't say I was completely surprised by anything other than I guess the way it all came together was gratifying. Yeah.
Jen:Did it go in a direction that you didn't expect, or was it? Did it pretty much fall into place? When you're like, yeah, when I was thinking about this, I mean, aside from the fact that you decided to kind of pivot into them, being the first person in parts of it, were there any other things that happened midstream that you were like, oh wow, that's, that's not where I thought this was going to go.
Amy Wight Chapman:But here it goes. My writing process is is never beginning to end, so I write scenes as I, as they occurred to me. So I would sit down and say today I think I want to write about how my mother must have felt the first Christmas after her mom died. So I'm going to write that scene. So I never really knew. I knew what the basics, the continuum, was going to be, that it was going to touch on my parents' marriage, which was 1942 to 1958, and that pivotal year from June of 58 to June of 59. But I didn't really know beyond that what was going to be, what the scenes were going to be or how I was going to indicate the progress through those years. So that was always a surprise. I mean, I never really knew what I was going to write about until I was writing it.
Jen:Well, and I'm interested just because when I I find when I go out, especially just for walks that aren't like super rigorous or whatever, but like when I'm by myself walking around in the woods, my brain is going a million miles a minute and I wind up coming out of the woods usually with like a whole keep notes for like 90 million things. There'll be something like I don't know. It definitely seems like moving and being in the quiet and in the space and being able to look around and just kind of be with yourself, you know, will amp your creativity up if you let it. Did you find any ties between your walking practice and your author practice?
Amy Wight Chapman:Yes, definitely, yeah, yeah. Especially, I do a lot of my walks and hikes early in the morning and that's my best thinking and writing time as well. So definitely, especially when I was walking on the camp road or hiking on the trail that I had hiked as a kid my whole life. But other places too, you know. Just the practice of walking meditation, I mean, I think you're supposed to empty your mind, but mine would go a mile a minute.
Amy Wight Chapman:Yeah, Did you run like you get inside grab a cup of coffee, run to your computer and just start like like no, that's what I should have done. But but I would. Usually, you know, the ideas would stick with me until I, until I got down to writing.
Jen:No, that's good, that's awesome. I'm looking forward to it. It looks like an amazing book and, as I said, I've been reading reviews and everyone has amazing things to say about it, and they're not all related to you.
Amy Wight Chapman:That's the thing that's been the most gratifying. Especially one of my brothers said you know, in sort of a cautionary way, several times during the writing of this you know this is going to be a really important book for our family and you know, I'm really glad you're writing this for our family and I don't know how much of a reach it will have beyond our family, but I'm really glad you're doing it. And then to find that my family's I always say our own small story has so much universal appeal has been just amazing. I mean, I've gotten notes from people I barely know saying you know, my dad died when we were teenagers and our family was your family or just you know some other thing that reminded them of their own family or someone they knew, and that's been really, really gratifying. And that people have told me I cried through the whole thing and I don't even know you. Yeah, oh, I sense that the movie rights might I don't even know you.
Jen:Yeah, oh, I sense that the movie rights might be the next thing that you saw, you know. So tell me about the world tour, are you? Where are you heading next? And and how has it been so far to be kind of. It must be fun to get into a space, I mean, except for the fact that you're kind of an introvert. But does it feel, does it make you feel? Well, I guess I guess it's told more from other people's perspectives. So maybe you don't feel super vulnerable when you're sitting there, but like having opened up your family to the world and then you're going to sit in front of folks who've, you know, presumably read the book or interested in reading the book and talking to them a little bit. These authors nights that you're doing, how is, how is that feeling?
Amy Wight Chapman:It's been amazingly energizing and easy, even for an introvert. I think one of the best things was that I started with a couple of local book clubs, so it was like everybody had read the book and it was like a love fest.
Jen:You know, everybody knew me and nobody, nobody hey you got to walk before you run, and that's perfect. That's a perfect gratification.
Amy Wight Chapman:And then the first library visit I did was in Harrison and my husband, my son and my oldest brother went with me and people were just so happy to have my brother, steve, there and the ones who had read the book were like, oh so tell me about this. And he was happy to answer questions and that was a lot of fun and then he came along to to the talk in Norway. So I have not done a lot of library talks yet, but that is about to change, because next week I have three in three days. Wow, I'm going to my sister's library in Mount Vernon on Monday and staying overnight with her and then on Tuesday. On Monday and staying overnight with her and then on Tuesday apparently there is some kind of luncheon involved with my old town public library visit on Tuesday and then on Wednesday I'll come back home and then I go to Randolph, new Hampshire, to their library.
Amy Wight Chapman:So yeah, those three, and then I'm going to be heading to Gloucester Massachusetts because a friend who used to be on the board of the Gloucester Writers Center recommended me for an author talk there in May, and I just have a bunch more scheduled.
Jen:That's awesome. I'll have to check you out when you're in Gloucester, because that's not. My brother lives in Gloucester. And I'm not super far from there.
Amy Wight Chapman:But, that's.
Jen:that's going to be also a very supportive audience, because there's a lot of artists that are kind of situated in the Gloucester Rockport area, so that's amazing.
Amy Wight Chapman:Yeah, I'm looking forward to it, yeah, and I'm going to be sharing the stage with another quirky memoirist. Her book is. I haven't read it yet and I need to get my hands on it. Her book is based on the inscriptions her parents wrote in books that they gave to her throughout her life.
Jen:Oh, that's cool. Oh my gosh, all these things that as a parent.
Amy Wight Chapman:You look back and you're like, oh, I wish I had done that.
Jen:That's such a great idea. That's amazing. So that's cool. The word's out that you're bionic now, so they're going to run you ragged.
Jen:Awesome. Well, this has been such a treat, amy. Thank you so much for making time today. I hope that your knee continues to heal well and I'm going to see if I can find this Gloucester link and put it in the show notes as well as links to buying the book, because I think it. I think your brother and you are willing to ship. If you buy from the Bethel Historical Society, we can ship the memoir in worst case scenario if you're not going to be in the neighborhood.
Jen:So I encourage everybody to get out there, read all about it and interact with Amy on her sub stack as well. It's you are, let me see it's amywchapmancom Right, or you can access it and support her there and read all of her writings, not just the memoir. So thank you so much.
Amy Wight Chapman:Thank you so much. This has been a lot of fun.
Jen:Yeah, I'm looking forward to it and I hope I get to meet you in person and do a little low and local hike soon. Definitely you can. You can take me up Man's Road, the man Roadside.
Amy Wight Chapman:Man Road Trail yes.
Jen:We won't do any talking because I'll be completely out of breath, but awesome. Okay. Completely out of breath, but awesome. Okay. Huge thanks to my great guest, amy White Chapman. I hope you'll check out the show notes for links to some of the amazing places we talked about in this episode, and please be sure to check out Amy's website, amywchapmancom, so you can meet Amy in person at one of her upcoming author talks. She is ping-ponging all over the state of Maine this summer, so if you are living life the way life should be, she's probably coming to your local library or bookstore very soon. Check it out and, with that, hoping to be back in your earbuds sooner than later, keep reading, keep moving, keep honoring yourself and keep getting a little wild.