Stories
The First Leap:
from Neosho to New York
David Rounds
* * *
At the end of my trip to Europe in 1962, I met a young man my age buying ice cream in Paris. Like me, David Rounds wanted to be a novelist. He had come to Paris to try and meet up with the novelist he most admired, James Baldwin. He didn't succeed to meet him, but we had a good time together, beginning when we both pissed at the top of Montmartre and followed the stream that it made from top to bottom of the butte.
The next summer, 1964, we met many times to compare notes on the novels we were writing: "Coalitions" in his case and "Peace" in my case. His novel was beautiful, centered on an inter-racial couple with a dialogue that was really beautiful, worthy of David's model James Baldwin. "Coaltions" got good reviews when it was published, but there were no sales, and David's second novel was bitter as a result. As for "Peace," I could not even find a publisher.
After a brief visit in California with Nina in the 1970's, we lost touch for many years, and re-connected in 2016. Here is the mail that I received from him.
How splendid of you to get us jn touch a gain. Rediscovery --whether of old friends or forgotten
Landscapes or neglected books -- seems to be a hallmark of living into one's seventies.
I will make an attempt at a brief auto-biography, but I'm not sure when it was that we were last in touch-- perhaps when you went to France
Sue and I moved west in 1972 so that I could study with the Buddhist monk and teacher Xuanhua. He had founded in San Francisco a monastery in the Chinese Buddhist tradition. meanwhile I worked for a newspaper in Napa and Sue commuted to Berkeley and got a PhD. in 1978 we moved farther north to Ukiah where Master Xua had established another monastery much larger .
Monastery and school. I worked as a lay brother, Sue created a program for training school-teachers, and Nathaniel was born in 1980
In 1987, we left the monastery and I took a job as a high school teacher in a small valley near the coast. I was still writing, but I don't remember whether you saw my book about a trucking company founded on utopian principles or my book of children's stories or my book about a Canadian all-female string quartet. These were fun to write, but the only book that may have a future is the translation some colleagues of mine and I did of The Surangama Sutra.
and now? Still living in Ukiah, still writing and translating, taking pleasure in poems and in writing music for an a Capella choir. Sue is now president of our buddhist university but likes her garden best. Nathaniel, now 35, works for a nonprofit in Houston. His two children are the best news of all.
My computer skills are poor but I'll do my best to send you some things I like
Keep in keep in touch
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Stages
1986-1992
Fall of Soviet Empire
1992-1997
UNESCO Culture of Peace Programme