ABOUT ME

Creating a website and writing a BLOG have helped force me to write. I thought about setting a goal of writing at least one blog post a month. But somehow, it seems too artificial. So it looks like my blog will grow more spontaneously and organically and I will post when inspired or feel that I have something I want to say. Writing is a solitary activity that ripens in its own time. After all, I really have nothing to prove. My writing is what it is and progresses slowly and painfully as I am committed to caring for my two grandsons and have little time to write. The only thing I know for certain is that I must stick with it if I am ever going to finish a book.

MY BLOG POSTS

I titled my BLOG, the Cotton Chronicles, and gave it the tagline- “occasional musings of an itinerant seanchaí polishing his craft online.“

Musings of an itinerant seanchaí because having traveled from place to place throughout life, I have developed a sense of Mono no aware (物の哀れ) which is a  Japanese term for the awareness of impermanence (無常 mujō) or transience of things and a transient gentle sadness (or wistfulness) at their passing as well as a longer, deeper gentle sadness about being the reality of life. 

Seanchaí in honor of my pure Celtic/Irish DNA and traditional Irish storytellers. Storytelling was one of the main forms of fireside entertainment among ordinary Irish folk. The storyteller was held in high esteem by the ordinary Irish, who revered and cultivated story and song as their principal means of artistic expression.

Having discovered that I am the 7th great-grandson of John Cotton, the Puritan Patriarch of New England, has become both a blessing and a burden. A blessing because it roots me in the past. A burden because digging in the past unearths bones that cry out for flesh. After all, John Cotton was a Founding Father to America’s Founding Fathers and he established America’s first public school, the Boston Latin School, and its first university, Harvard University.

For me, digging up bones is more enjoyable than assembling skeletons, and connecting dots and finding patterns is more enjoyable than crafting stories. Writing does not come easy. Taking Pains only begins to describe the process.  I have never written a book but will endeavor to do so.  I have never written a blog but will do so to log my progress.

Over time, my story as a storyteller will unfold. I relish a good story, and I aspire to be a great storyteller. Storytelling is as old as humanity. My problem is that I have chosen to relate “real stories” grounded in history. Yet, I am not a trained historian. Nor am I a certified genealogist. And I don’t have an MFA in creative nonfiction. So aside from my innate curiosity and a desire to become intimate with the past, I have little to offer by way of qualifications. The learning is in the doing.

I served on the Board of the Winthrop Society for 9 years, was elected National Chairman and president, and became President Emeritus in 2010. Concurrently, I served as a Trustee of the Partnership of the Historic Bostons for 14 years, authored articles for the Winthrop Journal and the Mayflower Quarterly, and contributed several articles to BOSTON: The Small Town with a Big Story, published September 2019.

Currently, I am working on two books, THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY COMPANY BOSTON MEN and LINCOLNSHIRE MIGRATION TO NEW ENGLAND 1620-1640. The first book will focus on how ten men from Boston, Lincolnshire, played a pivotal role in founding the Massachusetts Bay Company. The second will detail 255 individuals from Lincolnshire who emigrated to New England from 1620 through 1640. I am also working on a biography of John Cotton titled John Cotton: An Intimate Investigation of His Life and Times, which was awarded First Place in the 2017 WRITERS’ LEAGUE OF TEXAS MANUSCRIPT CONTEST for nonfiction.

I also created a website & blog called BOSTON400. Please feel free to visit the site.

In zazen, leave your front door & your back door open. Let thoughts come & go. Just don’t serve them tea. Shunryu Suzuki

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