Category Archives: Humanities

Of Words, Textures, and Fuzzy Things

In the past week I’ve been pretty darn busy, and it’s been fun. First, I perused online writing workshops and found one I really liked — The Writing Bridge. They are a small group, but very active. Submission of writing samples was required for admission. They are serious about writing and critique, and I foresee whiling away many productive hours on the forum. I also received interest from local people who want to try writing memoir. I’ve set a date. I hope folks show up for the meeting, but even if not, I’ve put the meetings on my calendar and established a location. I will go regardless — a date with my muse. Though it would be more fun, I think, with at least one other writer involved.

Thursday my mother-in-law and I visited the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles and then had afternoon tea at a downtown cafe. Since she has begun learning to knit, and I’ve been intrigued about this time-honored craft, we paid a visit to a store that Lynn referred me to. (Despite being on the east coast, she has extensive knitting acquaintances!)

We entered Commuknity and browsed a few minutes. Then I introduced myself to Nathania Apple, who runs the store. She and her friends, Kate and Chloe, were so warm and friendly that I felt comfortable peppering them with questions. They radiated their love of knitting and happily provided advice. I learned that the needles I’d bought a couple months ago were too bulky to learn on, and the yarn I’d chosen too difficult for a beginner, so they guided me to the appropriate tools. They assured me I would come to use the other needles and yarn someday. The store has an airy yet cozy atmosphere; there’s even a living room in which to sit and knit. They have social gatherings, a book group, and classes — all just two miles from my home. I look forward to this new craft.

As It Wants

Here’s a quote we like from John Steinbeck to a friend who asked him for rudimentary suggestions for the beginner. It may be all you need to get you started with your memoir:

“Don’t start by trying to make the book chronological. Just take a period. Then try to remember it so clearly that you can see things: what colors and how warm or cold and how you got there. Then try to remember people. And then just tell what happened. It is important to tell what people looked like, how they walked, what they wore, what they ate. Put it all in. Don’t try to organize it. And put in all the details you can remember. You will find that in a very short time things will begin coming back to you, you thought you had forgotten. Do it for very short periods at first but kind of think of it when you aren’t doing it. Don’t think back over what you have done. Don’t think of literary form. Let it get out as it wants to. Over tell it in the matter of detail — cutting comes later. The form will develop in the telling.”

[from the Center for Autobiographical Studies]

Posting will be light over the next seven days, as I have company arriving this afternoon.

Blessed Are the Meek

When I was forced in parochial school to learn the Eight Beatitudes, I always stumbled over the third one, “Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.” How absurd. The meek, from my observation, ended up with the chicken neck rather than the breast, the giver rather than receiver of nice birthday gifts, the one at home on New Year’s, the one to care for ancient relatives and disabled pets no one else would keep, forgotten in the will, passed up for promotions, living in later years on Social Security in a trailer. I might buy “for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,” but inherit the earth? Look around.

I get it now, though; for as I grow older I find that it is the meek I cannot forget. Long after I can no longer remember the ruthless, machinelike ones, I remember the gentlest souls. They are the ones I must celebrate, the ones whose portraits I find myself trying to write again and again, my mother, my dear Aunt Anne, my fifth and sixth grade teacher, Mr. Grekle. When I write the portraits of those who have loved me best, I understand how it is they inherit the earth, for they are the ones who have taken possession of me.

–Tristine Rainer, Your Life as Story: Discovering the New Autobiography” and Writing Memoir as Literature

Anniversary

Three hundred sixty-five action-packed days ago we arrived in Santa Clara. I know my way around a bit, but much of Silicon Valley remains unplotted for me. I’ve met some lovely people and made acquaintances. It was stressful, this transition, since it was accompanied by family problems and big events. My energy was scattered and I had trouble identifying the shape I wanted my life to take. I hope next year brings more clarity and depth. I intend to continue making collages and playing creatively. I commit to my writing more seriously. I will find a way to use my counseling skills.

The key, I think, to achieving the inner bounty I desire is to apply focus and discipline. I reveled in the time involved making that recent collage. To prepare for a photo session for the magazine interview I did, I started another canvas. I’ll an appointment with myself to spend time on the project, and when I finish this one, I’ll set another one in motion and make a date with myself again. Repeat, and repeat again.

With regard to writing, I’ve decided to commit effort to the genres of memoir, personal essay, and poetry. I accept that I have no interest in writing fiction and “real writers” don’t all write for that genre. I do want to learn more about freelance writing, although this may take time to break into. Meanwhile, I have plenty of source material for writing about life. I put a notice on Craigslist to create a memoir-writing group; three people have responded so far.

As for the counseling, I need to contemplate the life coach practice I’d incubated last year. I have contacts, and I could explore this. It appeals as a future source of work because it would be flexible, allowing time to be a mother — another endeavor I hope to undertake. With these aspirations, along with reading and taking care of my physical fitness, my life is rich and meaningful.

On Wednesday my mother-in-law arrives for a week — her first visit here. There will be much to do and see and probably less time spent on the Web. Then a couple of short weeks later will find me winging east to Syracuse, where I’ll visit my parents and one of my sisters. We plan to head to my mother’s hometown to see relatives too.

This is all an auspicious beginning of my second year as a Californian.

It’s the way to educate your eyes. Stare. Pry, listen, eavesdrop. Die knowing something. You are not here long.

–Walker Evans

Real Life Fairy Tales

I completed the first writing exercise from Your Life as Story. The author assigned a fairy tale — the writerÂ’s own. She said it could be three sentences or as long as one wanted. It simply needs to contain:

  1. A beginning in which something happened so that a person had a problem and a need.
  2. As the person pursued his or her desire a struggle ensued.
  3. And in the end the person changed with a realization.

She instructed not to overthink these, but to just start with “once upon a time” and to write in third person.

The second part of the exercise was to write a short letter to a grandchild or child sharing what it is I learned from my life. This letter should contain an important insight, vision of reality, or bit of wisdom I wish to pass on.

As I wrote my story, I realized all the details I left out, as well as the different perspectives from which this tale could be told. For example, within this story about my endeavor to get an education await the relationships I had that started and ended; these too had an effect on my goal, but to incorporate them would overwhelm the tale. As I wrote, I also saw other fairy tales I could tell about that time of my life offering other themes and lessons; and, of course, I detected a cache of narratives about other times of my life.

Mostly I had fun writing the story, and this in itself made the endeavor worthwhile.

I see what I created as raw material, pieces of which can be used as source for a poem, or re-worked for an article or essay. This book is amazing. IÂ’ve only just begun, but her premise is to teach how to use story structure in writing autobiography. IÂ’ve never been interested in writing fiction, though IÂ’ve felt as though I should be; I perceived nonfiction as the domain of published novelists — a prerequisite, I suppose. I hesitated to write seriously or consider myself a candidate for publication, because the most natural form is telling my own life stories; being an obscure person among billions, I thought it not worth pursuing. Then I discovered blogging, which provided a means of expression. But itÂ’s too rough — the result is not polished. It is also too immediate; it doesn’t encourage discretion. Others can be harmed in very real ways by self-revelation, especially on the Internet, and this awareness begets self-censorship. IÂ’ve been drawn to reading memoirs in recent years, almost more so than fiction. I think I have found my genre. I may never share what I write, but it now feels real and legitimate.

Thoughts About the New Autobiography

This is a form of note-taking to bookmark tidbits that particularly spoke to me from the book, Your Life as Story, by Tristine Rainer.

We are no longer a tribal people, but we are entering the age of the global village. We now have a technological campfire, the Internet, that allows us to find other members of our tribe — people who share our general mythology about life. We could use our technology to enrich our collecctive wisdom through autobiographic storytelling — but we have lost the skill.

The lie is not in the new popular forms: factions, docudramas, nonfiction novels, personal journalism, dramatic nonfiction, the literature of fact, creative nonfiction, autobiographical novels, nonfiction narrative, and literary memoir. Mixing of fiction and nonfiction has been enjoyed by other cultures for centuries. The art of the earliest Japanese diaries lay in blending the author’s experience with imagination so the reader could not tell where fact ended and fiction began. The lie in our culture is in not recognizing that we are now sophisticated enough to enjoy this kind of writing and entertainment, and that this is what we are doing.

For the curious who might want to see how I’ve created my mini-course — or who just want to see how obsessive and compulsive I can be — you can peruse it at your leisure. Incidentally, I wrote this post as a means of postponing the first exercise in her book; I’m wrung out from last night. Tomorrow!

Another Better Day

Today brought a gift from Kat (thank you, dear), who recently culled her book collection and offered them to whoever was interested. I pinged her for titles that made me curious. Here’s what she sent:

Furthermore, I realize I was being a bit of a dunderhead about all this time on my hands. Years ago I yearned to have this liberty, this privilege, and I’ve been squandering it on the Internet. This is the seduction: I’m an information junkie, a reader, a librarian; as wonderful as it is, the Internet is no longer a resource for me. It is a wellspring for my addiction. I need to stop treating everything I read, see, feel, or think as potential material for the blog. Readers tell me the blog is a source of help, pleasure, and information, and I’m happy about this. I want to continue. However, until recently I devoted way too much time to it and to mindlessly whiling away hours on the web. Thus the feelings of sterility and dissatisfaction.

Until I return to work in October, if there is a position for me, why not enjoy the luxury of devoting time to my interests? This evening I walked myself into the garage where I keep my art supplies, pulled out a small canvas, selected some colors that appealed, and painted it. I’ve no idea where it will lead. I’m not thinking. I’ve laid down one base color and let it dry, and then added two more. It will develop as it develops. I give myself permission not to know.

I also pulled off my bookshelves, for leisurely perusal, the following:

In the coming weeks, there will be many ways to use my time. Months ago I was interviewed for an article to be published in a national health magazine, which will be printed in the fall sometime; I was contacted today to be photographed next week for it. (I’m keeping the name of the magazine under my hat until I actually see the issue.) My mother-in-law also comes to visit next week, and I’ve been planning activities that will be of interest. I’m focusing on my workout and re-joined a weight management program; with continued effort I’ll enjoy the results. I’m walking in a 5K event August 27 and doing more volunteer work. I may also travel a bit, but this is only in the discussion stage. Amid all this, I can dip into the books I listed, be inspired, and apply my efforts. All this can happen because I will spend less time staring at my navel via my blog. Blogging has revolutionized personal expression, yes. There are positives to it: it builds community, provides an outlet. However, it has become, for me at least, an act of mental masturbation. Even reading other blogs is in some way a narcissistic endeavor. When reading and writing blogs becomes a must instead of a want, when it turns into work despite the fact it was begun for pleasure and doesn’t bring remuneration, it’s time to retreat and refocus.

I’m not certain what this means for my blog. It may be I post once or twice a week. Over at North Coast Cafe Rodrigo listed the blogs he might take to a deserted island; among them was Gut Rumbles. I checked it out, and what struck me (aside from his attitude and politics) was that in the past two days, Acidman wrote 25 posts. Many are interesting, I’ll grant. And he can do whatever he wants, of course. But I would never be able to keep up with this writer’s output; multiply this by all the blogs that catch my interest, and I’d have no life. Likewise, I do not have the time to post every tidbit I come across, nor even half of it — not if I want a vital, creative, joyful life.

So there you have Part Two of my effort to recover from the abyss of my own self-absorption.

The Breathing of Poetry

There is a sense in which poetry is not so much the writing of words as it is the movement of breath itself. To write it, you must pay attention to the breathing of poetry, to all speech as breath, to the relationship of our thoughts and emotions and the actual way they fill our bodies.

–Robert Hass, from The Language of Life: A Festival of Poets by Bill Moyers

Why I Loved Counseling and Miss It So

Though this quote pertains to ministry, the work of psychotherapy was also rooted in what the words below describe.

When people come to speak to me, whatever they say, I am struck by a kind of incandescence in them, the “I” whose predicate can be “love” or “fear” or want,” and whose object can be “someone” or “nothing” and it won’t really matter, because the loveliness is just in that presence, shaped around “I” like a flame on a wick, emanating itself in grief and guilt and joy and whatever else. But quick, and avid, and resourceful. To see this aspect of life is a privilege of the ministry which is seldom mentioned.

–Marilynne Robinson, Gilead

Fini!

I finished Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince this afternoon. All I can say is, “Wow!” She has matured the characters well. I’m also pleased that my hunch about What Happens to a Certain Character is correct. But it’s kind of a let-down to be finished. Ah well, here’s to waiting for book seven.