Together, alone. Southwestern Writers Collection : a memoir of marriage and place

Describes The Work Of Creating A Home At Meadow Knoll, A Place In Which Susan And Her Husband Raised Their Own Food And Animals, While Working Together And Separately On Writing Projects. Once Her Sense Of Home And Partnership Was Firmly Established, Albert Recalls How She Had To Find Its Counterbalance--a Place Where She Could Be Alone And Explore Those Parts Of The Self That Only Emerge In Solitude. Documenting A Life -- Meadow Knoll: Getting Here, Alone Together -- Where In The World -- Moving Through, Moving On, Moving In -- Dwelling, Rooting, Learning -- Naming -- All Our Food Is Souls -- Gaining, Losing -- Right Livelihood -- Alone, Together, Apart -- Lebh Shomea: Getting Here, Alone -- Silence -- Seeing Through Time -- Spirits Of The Place: El Desierto De Los Muertos -- Plains Fare -- Storms -- The Kenedy Women -- Belonging To The Community Of The Land -- In Place And Free. Susan Wittig Albert. Includes Bibliographical References. What does it mean to belong to a place, to be truly rooted and grounded in the place you call home? How do you commit to a marriage, to a full partnership with another person, and still maintain your own separate identity? These questions have been central to Susan Wittig Albert's life, and in this beautifully written memoir, she movingly describes how she has experienced place, marriage, and aloneness while creating a home in the Texas Hill Country with her husband and writing partner, Bill Albert. Together, Alone opens in 1985, as Albert leaves a successful, if rootless, career as a university administrator and begins a new life as a freelance writer, wife, and homesteader on a patch of rural land northwest of Austin. She vividly describes the work of creating a home at Meadow Knoll, a place in which she and Bill raised their own food and animals, while working together and separately on writing projects. Once her sense of home and partnership was firmly established, Albert recalls how she had to find its counterbalance—a place where she could be alone and explore those parts of the self that only emerge in solitude. For her, this place was Lebh Shomea, a silent monastic retreat. In writing about her time at Lebh Shomea, Albert reveals the deep satisfaction she finds in belonging to a community of people who have chosen to be apart and experience silence and solitude. A memoir that describes how the author has experienced place, marriage, and aloneness while creating a home in the Texas Hill Country with her husband and writing partner, Bill Albert. It reveals the deep satisfaction she finds in belonging to a community of people who have chosen to be apart and experience silence and solitude. The author describes her experience moving to the Texas Hill Country to create a place she can call home and to which she could feel rooted and reflects on her marriage and how she and her husband have created a partnership while still having individual identities