I think I've found an alternate spot to interview people for my Pilot Mountain Schoolhouse project. It's a study room deep in the inner workings of the Burke County library and when I say study room, I mean exactly that. No distractions. Sound proof. Just me and my shadow, except there are no shadows down there in the bowels. The room is big enough for two chairs, maybe a third if we scrunch up. Nothing on the walls, nothing on the platform shelf they call a desk.
Also no stimulation. The thoughts I recorded from the lady I was interviewing came straight from her mind and with her, that was a good thing. Her memories flooded out in such a heartfelt way, they brought me to tears a couple times. Would the story have been as powerful if we had been in a room at her home? Definitely. Yet there in that little eight by eight square room, there were two souls and a tape recorder. She was free and nothing around us reminded her to hold back the story.
It worked last Saturday.
Gretchen
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