Non-fiction / Our First Pilgrimage (Analysis)
Sticky pieces of jewel colored seaweed clung to the soles of our tennis shoes as we leapt into the bow of the welded skiff. Myself, all the sibilings, my closest friend Mandy, Mom and our friends Vicki and Roger from Ouzinkie maneuvered around eachother and claimed what we felt were the optimal seats for our voyage.
The skiff’s kicker sputtered to life, and we slowly retreated from the kelp choked beach and into the slate sea off Ft. Ambercrombie.
It was a quick jaunt of half an hour to get to Spruce Island, home of Monk’s Lagoon. I’d see the Russian Orthodox monks around town, fully bearded, donning long black robes and head scarves. One was an ex-professional skateboarder, and managed kick flips and ollies in heavy winter work boots. But a small colony of them held out in Monk’s Lagoon. They were the spiritual descendents of Father Herman, a Russian who came to Kodiak in the 1800’s, started an orphanage, and later was canonized as the first Russian Orthodox saint in the new world.
Vicki and Roger glared angrily at eachother. Mom cheerily smiled across the water, trying to abate the tension in the boat. We neared the island, and slowed to a smooth crawl to avoid the rocks that lay inches under water, and we land.
As soon as we had clamored ashore, one of the monks, red bearded, greeted us with a smile. “Welcome to our home,” he opened his arms and motioned graciously.
Vicki ignored Roger’s hand as he tried to help her off the skiff, “So today you want to help me and yesterday you were hitting me,” she growls. Mom stepped forward, grabbing Vicki’s hand, “Here you go Vick.”
Our monk greeter hears the exchange and murmmered to us children, “Your mother is an angel to those she encounters, I see,” and brought his left hand to his forehead, heart, left and right shoulder, three times over in blessing.
Our monk offered a tour of their settlement, and we started up the rocky beach towards the tree line. A small garden showed green buds popping through dirt, and long pieces of kelp were scattered throughout. “Does the tide come up this high?” I ask, toeing the dry sea weed.
“No, we use it as compost for our garden. It works really well and there is plenty to go around,” he answers.
We enter the muffled spruce forest, and follow a well trodden path. Moss hung from every limb, “bears bread” shelf fungus sprouted up tree trunks like stair steps, pine needles wooshed forward with our steps. We arrive at the first structure, a single room chapel, made of spruce logs with an onion dome atop. Inside an icon of the virgin rests at the focal point of the chapel. On the walls, resplendent paintings of golden saints in Byzanitian glory eye her from above. “This icon was brought from Russia with some of the first explorers in Alaska,” the monk informs us.
“It’s like an Alaskan Sistine Chapel,” Mom points out, looking towards the roof.
We leave the chapel and are led to another, equally as contained and executed. Behind it is a small graveyard with several wooden orthodox crosses, several made of white stone with Cyrillic letters engraved on their surfaces. To the right of the graveyard a spring bubbled from a small hole.
“This spring started flowing when Father Herman was buried here,” our monk explained. “These waters and the mud are know to heal the sick, even though St. Herman is no longer here. You probably know that his body was brought to the church in Kodiak when we was canonized in the 70’s.”
We nodded, and Vicki made the sign of the Eastern Orthodox cross, and Mom kneeled by the pool and scooped some water into glass jars we’d brought from home.
We wound through more forests, came across trail side places of prayer, and found our way back to the beach, where our monk blessed us before we left.
The sun was shining bright as we piled back in the skiff for our return journey. We all were quiet, even though many of the kids were still in elementary school, as we thought of the place we just visited. Roger pointed the skiff towards town, and we motored forward.
Without warning, fog engulfed us. Thick, impenetratable, like white smoke or ashy air, we were completely surrounded on all sides with a menacing veil. Sitting at the bow, I could barely make out the figure of Roger standing in the stern, a mere 12 feet away. On all sides fog surrounded us, just as did the placid waters of the Pacific. We were midway between Spruce and Kodiak Island, had no radio to call for help, and nothing to navigate with except the weak sun whose light barely filtered through the fog.
I wasn’t scared, but Mom looked a bit frightened behind her reassuring smile. We slowly motored forward, Roger confident as he steered the skiff. The fog still thick around us. He glanced up at the sun, checking our direction against its tentative rays.
Land! Suddenly sun streaked through the sticky clouds and we saw rocks ashore. But where were we?
There, sat the minivan, flocked by fireweed. The familiar logs from the amphitheatre at Fort Ambercrombie. Roger had navigated blindly from the middle of the channel to our exact starting point, and THAT, I say, is a miracle.
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Here are a few minor mistakes I found. All in all a good read. Is this a short story or an except from a larger work?
pg1
“our mother and our two friends” ‘Mother’ and ‘and’ should have a comma between them.
pg2
‘murmmered’= murmured
pg3
Split the third paragraph into two sentences (it’s a run-on.)
“the sun was shining bright,” Bright should be brightly or say the sun was bright.
“On all sides fog surrounded us, just as did the placid waters of the Pacific.”
Remove the word ‘just.’
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First the nit picky stuff.
day- a rare
consider replacing the ’-’
at eachother
typo
And we land.
not much of a sentence. consider omitting
I’d see the
I’d seen the
well trodden path
well trod path
We arrive at the first structure, a single room chapel
We arrive at a single room chapel
came across trail side places of prayer
awkward phrasing. doesn’t really provide much by way of description.
Most of this reads like a story and is quite interesting with the descriptions, bits of history and the personal interaction between the characters.
From the point where Mom scoops the water however it is rushed and reads as though you were in a hurry to get to the fog portion of the story. Though your notes said that you wanted to condense, I’d suggest you flesh out the last part of the story. You might even provide a little more insight into the comment about hitting that the wife makes.
Either way, miracle aside, you have the basis of an interesting story here.
6/6/6/6
Your descriptive skills are very much on point here. While reading this, I was able to conjure up a vivid image of the surroundings in my mind. You also managed to accomplish this with relatively few words, which I admire.
The only thing I could really suggest is to carve out some more details about the purpose of the journey. This is obviously a spiritual quest, but it’s sort of vaguely defined an skirted around, which isn’t necessarily a bad approach, but I didn’t get as much of a punch from that as I did from your descriptions of the scene. I think that if you were able to shore up that aspect of the piece a bit it would be much stronger – you’re halfway there already.
All in all it’s a strong piece of writing.
I think this is an interesting piece, but it seems to call for some kind of resolution, like a lesson learned.
“And we land.” You switch tenses within this piece from past to present. I’d go through and make it consistent.
Some picky proofing notes: “kelp choked” should be “kelp-choked.” “boats cavity” should be “boat’s cavity.” “eachother” should be “each other.” There should be a period after “Welcome to our home.” The Russian priests aren’t donning long black robes, they’re wearing them. “Byzantian” should be “Byzantine.” “There, sat the minivan…” there shouldn’t be a comma after “there.”
I think you have something here, but you need to make the reason for the piece more explicit. Was there an atmosphere of atheism that was converted to one of religious feeling because of the visit and the fog?
I really like your writing style, and if this little snippet is part of a larger narrative I would certainly like to read it. Your grammar and punctuation appear to be good and your writing is vivid and descriptive. The structure of some sentences is a bit clumsy, which is my only real gripe. To give an example: “Thick, impenetratable, like white smoke or ashy air, we were completely surrounded on all sides with a menacing veil.” Along with one misspelling, it feels like you have overused and perhaps misused the punctuation. Perhaps breaking it down into two separate sentences would work better?
This is a very good beginning for a story. It needs some work to polish it up for an agent to evaluate. There are some small flaws in grammar, and spelling I noted. The story flows well from beginning to end. It needs a little expansion; regarding the feelings of the family while the fog held them so blind to show the tensions and fears and possibilities of what might happen. In a short story every sentence must be carefully gone over. While nothing to assist and enhance the story must be left out, due to the shortness of the venue, nothing extraneous must be left in. Then the ending paragraph will have more power. a good read
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