“If every man and woman were to take the meaning of their life and pursue it passionately, they would alter the social landscape overnight. In fact, that's how lasting revolutions are made – not by the raised arm of the masses, not by the military seizure of power, not by the political coup d'etat, but by individuals asserting who they are one at a time.” – Richard Bode, First You Row a Little Boat
In 1969, Richard Bode walked away from a full-time public relations job and became the freelance writer he'd dreamed of becoming. With his children grown and his marriage ended in divorce, he divested himself of most of his possessions and moved to a cottage on a California beach. He settled in, with just a van, a record player, a typewriter, and a few books and clothes. Of course, he worried about how he was going to survive, as he would write later in Beachcombing at Miramar (a shoebox of $20 bills represent the narrator's total assets).
But Bode felt he had no choice: “I felt as if I was swallowing myself” in a traditional job. “I felt a great need to have my life as one piece.”
Born on Long Island's Great South Bay, Bode learned to sail at twelve from a Long Island charter boat captain. He bought his own small blue sloop while a teenager, and although he hasn't owned a boat since, rich sailing metaphors continue to appear in his writing.
His experiences with the sloop “compelled me to live in the present and avoid too much unhealthy speculation about what might happen at some indefinite point ahead which I couldn't plainly see. For the truth is that I already know as much about my fate as I need to know. The day will come when I will die. So the only matter of consequence before me is what I will do with my allotted time. I can remain on shore, paralyzed with fear, or I can raise my sails and dip and soar in the breeze.”
The seeds of his longing for a simple, authentic life sprouted when Bode was a student at Union. From “King Jack,” a short story that appeared in the March 1949 issue of the The Idol: “All I can remember was a compelling urge to wander away from the life I had spent. I wanted to start anew as if I had been born at the age of eighteen and had stuffed the past into a jar, sealed it, and cast it to the river.”
After earning a B.A. in English in 1950, he worked on a newspaper and in magazine editing and public relations. Completing an M.F.A. in writing from Columbia University, he launched his writing career with articles for the Reader's Digest, Good Housekeeping, and many other magazines, as well as speeches for CEOs of major corporations.
In 1969, he left for the beach, and a decade later he published his first book, Blue Sloop at Dawn (Dodd, Mead) – an autobiographical novel about a small boy who loses his parents and finds solace through sailing. In 1992, he won the Excellence in Writing Award of the American Society of Journalists and Authors for his article, “To Climb the Wind,” published in Sail magazine. Word-of-mouth turned his 1995 book, First You Have to Row a Little Boat (Warner Books), into a bestseller. Today, it's in its ninth paperback printing and has gone through several hardcover printings. Twelve foreign-language editions have been published.
“When I was writing Little Boat, I walked on the beach every single day, so I could puzzle out what I was trying to say,” he says. “If your mind is a muddle, and you can go out on the beach and think, that's part of the process, too. Scenes on the beach while I walked — a shard of purple glass, a couple walking — registered in my subconscious, and became material for the next book. They were in my mind like paintings, because I was aware and consciously seeking. I was living what I was writing, and writing what I was living.”
The quest for an authentic life is the subtitle of his 1997 book, Beachcombing at Miramar (Warner Books). The book, currently in its third paperback printing, was a Book-of-the-Month-Club selection and was on Publisher's Weekly bestseller list. The first-person narrative has been translated into German, Swedish, Spanish, Hebrew, and Korean.
How does writing a book change him? “I think when you start a book or chapter, you have an idea what you want to say, but what comes out is often surprising. It's an act of self-discovery.”
Of the writers who have influenced Bode, “There are writers I love but I don't want to imitate – like Dickens and George Bernard Shaw. I don't want to get their music in my head – their styles are too different from mine. But there are other writers – Tolstoy is one – I could read him and sit down and write – his words come out effortlessly and truthfully. Willa Cather and Thoreau too.”
He particularly loves this Thoreau quote from Walden: “It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.”
“Art is close to my heart,” adds Bode. “To paint, you have to really see. And there's a connection between putting words down on paper and seeing what's going on around me.”
Asked if he believes most men and women don't pursue “the meaning of their life,” he says, “I don't want to sound presumptuous, but I think it's true, because of the pace of our lives. The pace keeps people from being more introspective. I think the effect is more pronounced because of technology.”
Does Bode think of himself as a hermit? “No, no. I'm very closely connected with my four children and my grandchildren. I don't live alone. I'm not a partygoer either, but I'm not a hermit.”
Why does he think so many people feel they don't fit in organizations? “We live in a democracy, but people work in organizations and corporations that are not at all democratic – they can't even open the window! The bureaucracy weighs more heavily on them than the government, though it's the government they complain about. People want control over their own lives, but they can't have this in organizations that are bureaucratic. They don't have a choice of boss, and it may be a terrible relationship. They may wake up every morning with dread at having to face that same despot.
“Corporations and organizations need to become more conscious. I think there's a need for a strong connection between leaders and art. If our leaders had an artistic spirit, it would make them better leaders. They wouldn't have to be artists, but appreciate and understand it.”
What's on the horizon for Bode? Currently, he's working on what he'll describe only as “a difficult, challenging book.” But he's taking his own advice: “Everything significant is small and slow,” a line from First You Row a Little Boat. “This was something I originally said to one of my grandchildren, who was asking me to drive faster. People tend to think that driving from Point A to Point B is lost time, and don't see the beauty along the way.”