This is lovely.

Am perhaps beginning a love affair with TED, as in TED Talks. 

The whole talk by Elizabeth Gilbert is great, but this was particularly lovely:

"I had this encounter recently where I met the extraordinary American poet Ruth Stone, who's now in her 90s, but she's been a poet her entire life and she told me that when she was growing up in rural Virginia, she would be out working in the fields, and she said she would feel and hear a poem coming at her from over the landscape. And she said it was like a thunderous train of air. And it would come barreling down at her over the landscape. And she felt it coming, because it would shake the earth under her feet. She knew that she had only one thing to do at that point, and that was to, in her words, "run like hell." And she would run like hell to the house and she would be getting chased by this poem, and the whole deal was that she had to get to a piece of paper and a pencil fast enough so that when it thundered through her, she could collect it and grab it on the page. And other times she wouldn't be fast enough, so she'd be running and running and running, and she wouldn't get to the house and the poem would barrel through her and she would miss it and she said it would continue on across the landscape, looking, as she put it "for another poet." And then there were these times -- this is the piece I never forgot -- she said that there were moments where she would almost miss it, right? So, she's running to the house and she's looking for the paper and the poem passes through her, and she grabs a pencil just as it's going through her, and then she said, it was like she would reach out with her other hand and she would catch it. She would catch the poem by its tail, and she would pull it backwards into her body as she was transcribing on the page. And in these instances, the poem would come up on the page perfect and intact but backwards, from the last word to the first."

Disagreeing

Been thinking about opinions, about disagreeing, about how somewhere along the line I grew frightened of having a strong opinion for fear someone would disagree with me and then I'd feel bad.  My father (and others) will be shocked to hear me say this, as in some ways I seem to have an endless supply of strong opinions, but this fear is also true about me.  I still want the right answer, the A++; I want for everyone in the whole world to think I'm pretty and smart and cool.  I wanna be the good kid. 

Anyway, was talking to Sam about it yesterday, and today he sent me this quote by Tolstoy on how tedious he finds Shakespeare as an example of brave disagreeing.   Love it, not because I agree, but because he just says it, you know?  The whole world loves Shakespeare and Tolstoy says: meh.  Although, I'm no Tolstoy.  Can we only express opinions this bold when we're Tolstoy? 
 
"I remember the astonishment I felt when I first read Shakespeare. I expected to receive a powerful esthetic pleasure, but having read, one after the other, works regarded as his best: "King Lear", "Romeo and Juliet", "Hamlet" and "Macbeth," not only did I feel no delight, but I felt an irresistible repulsion and tedium... Several times I read the dramas and the comedies and historical plays, and I invariably underwent the same feelings: repulsion, weariness, and bewilderment. At the present time, before writing this preface, being desirous once more to test myself, I have, as an old man of seventy-five, again read the whole of Shakespeare, including the historical plays, the "Henrys," "Troilus and Cressida," the "Tempest," "Cymbeline," and I have felt, with even greater force, the same feelings,—this time, however, not of bewilderment, but of firm, indubitable conviction that the unquestionable glory of a great genius which Shakespeare enjoys, and which compels writers of our time to imitate him and readers and spectators to discover in him non-existent merits,—thereby distorting their aesthetic and ethical understanding,—is a great evil, as is every untruth."

Tolstoy on Shakespeare. 1906.

Scripture Study at Faulkner's House

I read an interview with William Faulkner in The Paris Review this morning, and loved his response to the question of how he learned The Bible.  It reminded me of my own childhood, each kid in the family having to read a verse of scripture before dinner.  Faulkner seems to capture the restlessness of that part of childhood--that, and much more:

"My Great-Grandfather Murry was a kind and gentle man, to
us children anyway. ... he was simply a man of
inflexible principles. One of them was everybody, children on up
through all adults present, had to have a verse from the Bible ready
and glib at tongue-tip when we gathered at the table for breakfast
each morning; if you didn’t have your scripture verse ready, you
didn’t have any breakfast; you would be excused long enough
to leave the room and swot one up (there was a maiden aunt, a
kind of sergeant-major for this duty, who retired with the culprit
and gave him a brisk breezing which carried him over the jump
next time).

It had to be an authentic, correct verse. While we were little, it
could be the same one, once you had it down good, morning after
morning, until you got a little older and bigger, when one morning
(by this time you would be pretty glib at it, galloping through
without even listening to yourself since you were already five or ten
minutes ahead, already among the ham and steak and fried chicken
and grits and sweet potatoes and two or three kinds of hot bread)
you would suddenly find his eyes on you—very blue, very kind
and gentle, and even now not stern so much as inflexible—and
next morning you had a new verse. In a way, that was when you
discovered that your childhood was over; you had outgrown it and
entered the world."

Witness to the Impulse

I don't know if you had a chance to read my post on Segullah, but it turned out to be sort of an interesting experience for me.  Overall, I've been overwhelmed by the warm response.  People said the kindest things about my writing, the thoughts about my marriage, etc.  Maybe it's just because it's all about, well, me, but the comment section of that post seems pretty fascinating; it's perhaps a better read than the post itself.  (And if you've ever wanted to hear me talk sort of frankly about why I decided to marry Sam, I respond to a few comments with something along those lines.)  So aside from those nice nice comments from people, there were also a few comments I expected, which were some people disturbed I had chosen to marry outside the church.  Like I said, I expected those comments, and when the first one came in, I wasn't as bothered as I expected to be.  A few folks ralied to my defense, and I felt like I knew what to say, and I felt sort of like, "Whew, crisis averted." 

But then another comment came in, this one shorter, more pointed.  I'm tempted to copy and paste it here, but instead I'll summarize that it said my guest post was so sad because according to my own beliefs, my beautiful marriage won't last.  Let me say first that I don't agree, that this isn't my belief, that I've had some precious spiritual confirmation that my marriage won't be torn away from me on the other side (and I don't even think that's exact doctrine anyway, but okay).  This in no way diminishes how wonderful and important temple marriage is, but, well, see, here I go defending myself again.  This is hard to explain.  But the point is, the comment upset me.  Even thinking about it now makes me want to tear my hair and spit nails.  And not because I think this person is right, but that the response itself, the fact that it's possible, terrifies me.

You see, I'm writing a book.  I don't know if I've said that so clearly here, but I am.  And it's precisely about this, about dating and deciding to marry Sam.  I mean, it's about other stuff, too, but it's about that.  A love story.  A coming of age love story, is what I'll say when I try to sell it.  And the thing that trips me up when I try to write it, the thing that utterly paralyzes me, the thing that can stall me for several weeks of wordlessness, is responses like that one, or even the thought of potential responses like that one.  I tried to patiently explain to this person where I was coming from, but he/she just responded again today making it pretty clear that they didn't get it, didn't see what I meant, and maybe didn't want to.  Oh gosh, now I'm just worried you're reading this post and agreeing with this person, which you totally can; it's completely legal to agree with this person, just don't tell me about it, okay?  I can't take it.  And the point of this post isn't whether or not I agree, it's what happened after; it's about writing.  Moving on.

So I read this person's comment right as I was leaving my office, and I was just devastated.  I walked along Arlington St towards the T, feeling like I would weep, feeling vulnerable and terrified.  And it occured to me, wait, I CHOSE this; I submitted my post.  No one made me talk about this very personal aspect of my life.  And then it occured to, yeah, wait, I don't have to.  I don't HAVE to do this.  I don't HAVE to write this book, or if I do, I don't have to try and publish it.  This is MY business, no one else's, and maybe it's just not worth it to be that vulnerable. 

Pause.  Rewind to several months ago to when I had a similar thought.  Sam and I were driving around town, and it was raining, and we were talking about Sam's book.  This was back in the dark dark days of my last job, and I hadn't managed to write anything in months and months.  I was listening to Sam talk about his book, telling him what I think, and he was finding my opinion useful and the thought came into my head, "Huh.  Maybe the point of me going to school wasn't to be a writer myself.  Maybe I went to school so I could be useful to Sam.  Maybe he's the writer and I'm the writer-helper."  Immediately, with barely a beat to consider this possibility, I burst into tears.   Poor Sam, driving along thinking we're having this intellectual conversation, and all the sudden my own brain makes me sob.  I took my reaction to be a no: I ain't the writer-helper.  I mean, I am, but I'm also meant to write.  To write my own stuff.  It's in me, somewhere, even if I couldn't find it at the moment.

Fast-forward back to last week, walking to the T, thinking that maybe I didn't have to write my book.  Same response as in the car.  I mean, I didn't burst into tears, but the deepest, deeepest part of me knew that I actually didn't have a choice.  This is my JOB.  God gave me my experiences and the ability to write about them because He wanted me to tell about them, and choosing not to do so in order to protect myself from idiot opinions was beyond unacceptable.  It simply wouldn't do. 

This is a long post, and maybe you don't care, but for me, this is the story of me turning into a writer.  Not just someone who writes, but someone who MUST write, for whom it's an obligation, a spiritual and intellectual obligation.  I don't know what will happen with it; I'm not saying I'll get wildly successful with it. That voice that compels me doesn't say anything about success.  It just says I have to make this thing exist that doesn't exist now.

There's a passage in Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet that I've always liked, and always wanted to identify with, but never really felt.  And now I do.  And it's both lovely and terrifying.  I'll post the quote here.

"You ask whether your verses are any good. You ask me. You have asked others before this. You send them to magazines. You compare them with other poems, and you are upset when certain editors reject your work. Now (since you have said you want my advice) I beg you to stop doing that sort of thing. You are looking outside, and that is what you should most avoid right now. No one can advise or help you - no one. There is only one thing you should do. Go into yourself. Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write. This most of all: ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I write? Dig into yourself for a deep answer. And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn question with a strong, simple 'I must,' then build your life in accordance with this necessity; your whole life, even into its humblest and most indifferent hour, must become a sign and witness to this impulse."                                                      
                                                                                   --Ranier Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet, letter 1

Trying to Net Some Elusive Fish

A Few Quotes from Kay Ryan, found in X J Kennedy's Introduction to Literature:

"First, when I write a poem I'm completely occupied with trying to net some elusive fish; I'm desperate to get the net (made of words) knotted in such a way that it will catch the desired fish (a half-formed idea, a wisp of a feeling). I'm not thinking of anything but that; I'm not thinking of me, I'm not thinking of you" (627).

In response to the question, what is the purpose of poetry:

"The secret, long-term purpose of poetry is to create more space between everything. Poetry is the main engine of the expanding universe. You yourself will have noticed how reading a poem that really strikes you (that will be one in 25, if you're lucky; a poem can be great and still not strike YOU) makes you feel freer and less burdened, even if it's about death. You feel fresher, more awake. This proves my point; your atoms have been subtly distanced from each other, like a breeze is blowing through your DNA. That's poetry loosening you" (627).

I've Been Duly Chastised

Quotes here come from Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own, which I should have read 100 years ago:

"So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters; and whether it matters for ages or only for hours, nobody can say. But to sacrifice a hair of the head of your vision, a shade of its color, in deference to some Headmaster with a silver pot in his hand or to some professor with a measuring-rod up his sleeve, is the most abject treachery, and the sacrifice of wealth and chastity, which used to be said to be the greatest of human disasters, a mere flea-bite in comparison." (110)

"Therefore I would ask you to write all kinds of books, hesitating at no subject however trivial or however vast. By hook or by crook, I hope that you will possess yourselves of money enough to travel and to idle, to contemplate the future or the past of the world, to dream over books and loiter at street corners and let the line of thought dip deep into the stream." (113)

“When I rummage in my own mind I find no noble sentiments about being companions and equals and influencing the world to higher ends, I find myself saying briefly and prosaically that it is much more important to be oneself than anything else. Do not dream of influencing other people, I would say, if I knew how to make it sound exalted. Think of things in themselves.” (Page 115)

And here's the real chastizement, which won't make as much sense out of context. I can provide the remainder, if you're interested:

"How can I further encourage you to go about the business of life? Young women, I would say, and please attend,you are, ... in my opinion, disgracefully ignorant. You have never made a discovery of any sort of importance. You have never shaken an empire or led an army into battle. The plays of Shakespeare are not by you, and you have never introduced a barbarous race to the blessings of civilisation. What is your excuse?" (116)

from Flaubert and Dillard, on writing

Flaubert: "It is a delicious thing to write, to be no longer yourself but to move in an entire universe of your own creating. Today, for instance, as a man and woman, both lover and mistress, I rode in a forest on an autumn afternoon under the yellow leaves, and I was also the horse, the leaves, the wind, the words that my people uttered, even the red sun that made them almost close their love-drowned eyes."

Dillard: “One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. do not hoard what seems good. Give it give it all, give it now. Something more will arise fo later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water.”

Titles Never Used to Stress Me Out

Still writing a poem a day. This probably shouldn't make me proud of myself, but it do. Oh, it do.

I'm re-learning that thing that writers say--that you have to show up for work. That you sit in front of the computer and it seems like there's nothing in the world to say. But if you stay there, something arrives. And the more often you show up, the more the gears get slick and efficient and ideas barrel down the conveyer belt more quickly.

Last night I wrote when I felt really bummed, and it made me feel better. The PhD sort of beat the theraputic reasons for writing out of me, but I remember them now. It wasn't like the sadness went anywhere, I just put it on the page, put it to work. And it abated. I went to sleep feeling better.

Here's what I made, influenced by some useful cutting from Sam, but without real line breaks yet:


Bowing to the Melting Countertop

A black cat sits on the doorstep. When I coo, it runs off. The molten center of the planet agrees I am a disappointment. A volcano yawns.

Somewhere a car wash burns down. An orchid bows to a melting countertop.

“It’s a snap,” insists a shiny ant. “Extend your crunchy pincers and take prey by the thorax.” But it’s a big ant, the rainforest sort, mouth like a tractor. I am small.

I make spaghetti and feel like a failure. Washing dishes, I tell myself I tried. I really tried.

The members of the jury outside my window shake their heads.