Christal
Rice Cooper
Sarah Gorham’s
Alpine
Apprentice A Memoir
“Her Tight
Rubber Band”
I am so sick and tired of those travel
books that only tell the story about the person and what she went through while
living in that specific place. In the
process of reading these typical travel books, you as a reader only connect
with the way the writer connects with the place, and not the place itself.
Reading Sarah Gorham’s Alpine
Apprentice, published by University of Georgia Press (www.ugapress.org on March 1, 2017) was
a breath of fresh air for me, both literally (I could almost breath the white
winter air) and figuratively.
In Alpine Apprentice (jacket cover by
Erin Kirk New https://www.facebook.com/erin.k.new.7/media_set?set=a.1610128777198.2083439.1355597642&type=3 ) Gorham presents the
mountainous Bernese-Oberland, Switzerland as its own character, which I connected
with as a reader.
Erin Kirk New, middle
It was the late 1960s and 15-year-old
Gorham ((https://www.facebook.com/sarahgorham54/about?lst=100001876654400%3A1017796563%3A1496194402) lived with her parents
and four younger sisters in Washington D.C. where she attended the Gordon
Junior High School. It was at the school
that she was bullied.
"It had happened to me:
my scant seventy-six pounds launched into air by three muscular, fully
developed girls, then shoved back onto the toilet, where I trembled fro two
class periods, making absolutely sure the bullies were gone before
safety-pinning my stockings back together again and venturing out."
Sarah at age 17
As a result of being bullied and fear of the
political trauma of the day, Gorham exhibited inappropriate behaviors out of
desperation, which included her bullying her four younger sisters.
Sarah Gorham far right.
Her
parents out of their own desperation did what they though was best for all five
of their daughters and sent their oldest daughter Gorham to The Ecole d’Humanite, a boot-camp type
of boarding school, located in the mountainous Bernese-Oberland,
Switzerland.
Gorham spent two year at The Ecole d’Humanite, founded in 1934 by
Paul and Edith Geheeb.
Gorham reveals in her preface how
Switzerland never left her consciousness; in fact it has held in her
consciousness like a tight rubber-band for over 40 years.
"Two years in a Swiss boarding school has elongated over my lifetime, a rubber band with no spring
back. It is tucked deep into my
character, making absolutely clear – though every cell in my body resists this
in its constant replenishment – I am still that adolescent, like it or not. Family, profession, and all accomplishments
fade to black."
Sarah Gorham in March of 2009
That adolescent in a woman’s body has
quite a list of accomplishments: She received her BA from Antioch College,
and her MFA from the University of Iowa.
Sarah Gorham, standing in the middle, fifth from left.
Gorham is a poet, essayist, and is president and
editor-in-chief at Sarabande Books (http://www.sarabandebooks.org),
which she co-founded with her husband poet and playwright Jeff Skinner (http://jeffreyskinner.net).
The two, who reside in Prospect,
Kentucky, celebrated their 35th wedding anniversary this past May.
Left, Sarah and Jeff on their wedding day inYaddo's Rose Garden.
Right, Sarah and Jeff celebrating Sarabande's 15th anniversary.
She’s published four books of
poetry: Don’t Go Back to Sleep
(Galileo Press, 1989); The Tension Zone (Four Way Books,
1996); The Cure (Four Way Books, 2003); and Bad Daughter (Four Way
Books, 2011).
She’s also written the collection of essays, Study in Perfect (University of Georgia Press, 2014).
Alpine Apprentice A Memoir is about
Gorham’s school schedule, the classes she took, the books she read, the food she
ate (potatoes!), letters, and the typical things that all teenagers have to
confront: sex, the opposite sex,
alcohol, drugs, friends from different cultures, and homesickness. In the below excerpt she talks about Swiss German versus High German, which can also be
translated to the teenager making the choice between being a child or an
adult.
"The experts might say
it’s better to master one tongue at a time.
Forget modern dance till you’ve mastered ballet. Don’t improvise till
you can read music. But when you’re
tugged in two directions, as any adolescent is – Am I child or adult? Follower or leader? Bad girl or good? – the choice is not so
simple. The miracle of Swiss versus High
German is that you can have it both ways.
You can flip from one kind of person to another. You can hang with your homies and please your
teacher. You can swear boorishly and
serve as a fine example for your Kameraden.
Care to appear highly articulate or super intimidating? You have the tools. Pluck an Olympic-size word from the air. Impress them.
Then right before they roll their eyes to the heavens, let go the
sloppiest, salt-of-the-earth, most repulsive insult you can think of. Impress them more."
Intertwined are numerous photographs
throughout the book as well as descriptions of the character Switzerland, its
origin, its history, and its terrain, which at many points is poetic, and in my opinion, Gorham at her best.
"Warning, the Waters of
Switzerland are deceiving. Glassy brooks
slip through pastures and trip down hillsides carrying the invisible filth of
cow hooves, but the water is completely transparent; it suggests purity, not
poison. A fairy tale lake in bright
shades of green appear around the bend of a steep looping trail. You are far from the lagoons of Florida; the
little sunset ponds of New Hampshire; the bays of Wisconsin; Martha’s Vineyard,
Bethany, Assateague – the populated beaches of your childhood. This lake is gem-faultless, polished and
gleaming. Look! Heroic nixes are, even now, beckoning . . .
vapor shaped and gauzy. They ride the
rolling peaks of wind-formed ripples.
Pray tell, what century is
it? Hear them murmur, whispering till
they have you doffing your clothes on the pebbled sand jumping stark naked into
their clutches. Your breath is snatched
away (sting of a snake, knife cut). Now
you stroke faster and faster to keep yourself warm, then slower and slower,
floating sleepy now, nodding too far from the shore. Few words are equal to the water’s
temperature and sensation as it slips over your face. If you froze to death
right here, who would care? Would you care?"
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