April, third week :: 2021

I marked off my 120th day of writing this weekend and decided to take a few days off to reset my goals. I’m stuck on one chapter of the novel rewrites and I need a little bit of time away from it to get some perspective. I was feeling bad about how slow these rewrites are going, but then I came across James Baldwin’s admission that writing is just hard. “Every form is difficult, no one is easier than another. They all kick your ass. None of it comes easy.” Amen to that.

I asked Mark to take the long way home tonight, around the dike on the low-lying road that curves around farms and newly bright fields. We rolled down our windows and drove slowly, letting Bortkiewicz’ Lyrica Nova play out into the sunset, something we’ve done for years whenever we need to unwind. These first weeks of school I’ve had a hard time figuring out how to find real rest, but I’ve at least remembered that it begins with a little time and a bit of nature, even if it’s only seen from the window of a moving car.

The moon hung over us as we drove, a bright sickle against the blue sky. She’s moving through her cycle again, patient and constant while our world keeps fracturing and wounding itself. All around us green blades pushing up through soil, rogue daffodils in ditches, flit of deer shadows among the cottonwoods, moth dance above the windshield. Inhale. Exhale. Tomorrow I’ll get back to studying, back to learning how to write, because as James Baldwin says:

“You write in order to change the world, knowing perfectly well that you probably can’t, but also knowing that literature is indispensable to the world. In some way, your aspirations and concern for a single man in fact do begin to change the world. The world changes according to the way people see it, and if you alter, even by a millimeter, the way a person looks or people look at reality, then you can change it.

Let me know how you’re changing the world today, friends. xo

---

Gathered:

~ Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows reading Rilke.

~ Justine Bateman refusing to feel bad about aging.

Peace keep you.

More soon.

Tonia

a list of things to keep, for the Solstice

Sunday morning we got up early and went for a walk to watch the (near) Solstice sunrise. The sun was hiding behind a solid bank of stainless steel clouds, so it was more like an awakening than a rising, but we were glad to be out of doors to welcome the turn of the year anyway. It had been raining for hours by then and the path was littered by the last of the fallen leaves and long pink earthworms drummed up from their hideaways; egrets made patient stalks of the farm fields, arrows of geese passed overhead going north and south and every direction in between. I try always to be out in nature near the Solstice. That’s when the carnival of my mind can settle down and I can start thinking about the new year ahead and what I want to bring to it.

I’ve had so many conversations with friends lately trying to make sense of the world as it is, going over and over the possible whys and hows and wondering if it will ever be healed, but this morning watching the light on the winter grasses, I thought how weary I am of the striving, how ready I am to move forward. Not just from 2020, but from a lifetime of carrying too much weight that was never meant for me. Perhaps you can relate.

The lovely Niamh at Fairlyand Cottage posted a video yesterday about the 10 habits she was going to keep in the new year, and it just fit my mood. Let go the striving and focus on carrying good things forward. I thought about it quite a bit last night and made myself a list of things I have been consciously working on and want to continue in the new year.

Here it is.

I want to continue:

• moving away from a culture of suspicion and distrust and into my more natural state of openness, belief in the goodness of others, and hopefulness.

• releasing myself from relationship and association with those who want to stay in that culture (this is boundary setting for me, not a prescription for anyone else)

• releasing myself from dogmas

• healing my relationship with the feminine by cultivating friendships with women, removing internalized patriarchy, and believing myself

• finding middle ground. Avoiding bandwagons, slogans, labels, and easy jargon. (Work In Progress, for sure)

• not internalizing judgement or criticism from people who are not in relationship with me or who have not taken time to understand me

• cultivating generosity through deliberate giving, deep gratitude and presence, and a mindset of abundance (another very much Work In Progress)

• celebrating the ordinary year with small observances (the Wheel of the Year follows the natural world and makes it easy to be present to the time and place I’m in)

• nurturing myself through

  • daily yoga (I’m doing yin yoga every other day and it is life-changing)

  • walking (I’d like to double my mileage this year)

  • herbal infusions (which help balance hormones, mood, and energy levels)

  • Ayurvedic practices like abhyanga

• making small, daily efforts in writing (I’ve tried a lot of schedules, but this is the thing that works best for me, and it’s how I’m jump-starting my practice again after a long Covid-hiatus)

• building efficient and sustainable systems in my home and work (more permaculture principles, less waste, less consumption, more focus)

• beginning the day with poetry (I copy one poem by hand and read at least one other)

• learning new skills (currently: knitting, sourdough, and herbal studies)

• delighting in whatever feels magical to me: stories, music, art, nature, friendships, and more

• growing flowers everywhere

• challenging myself with books and movies that force me to pay close attention, be patient, and stretch my understanding and comfort level (with lots of room for entertainment too, of course!)

• working on an ebook version of my first novel to share with everyone

It was such an encouraging practice to sit down at this turn of the season and think about what is already working for me and see that I have actually put many good things in place. I don’t really need to make aspirational lists for the new year. I just need to carry on, a little bit every day. What a good feeling at the end of a year that often felt really bad!

I’d love to hear from you too. What is working for you? What good things have you done and want to keep doing?

Sending my heartfelt wishes for a lovely Christmastide to you all.

Happy Winter!

tonia

Writing soundtrack for this post: Henryk Gorecki, Symphony No. 3

Synchronous:

“My work: to do more than reproduce the toxic stories I inherited and learned…My work: to write poems that make my people feel safe, seen, or otherwise loved…”

Jose Olivarez - Ars Poetica

continually

My body and mind have adjusted to quarantine-time by slowing down. There is nothing urgent on the schedule and yet the morning slips away between cups of tea and cleaning the kitchen, I blink and the afternoon follows. Only a month ago I was all efficiency and order.

I worry a lot. Not about myself or my loved ones, per se, but about the curtain pulled back, so many teetering on the edge of disaster. Has there ever been a war or plague or disaster that came for the rich and powerful and left alone the weak, the old, and the poor?

This morning we dialed up France and prayed from the prayer book together. There was a time delay, and so our words stuttered and doubled each other. “Our Father…” “Our Father….” “Forgive us…” “Forgive us…” “Give us this day…” “this day…” I imagine the prayers echoing continually, continually.

Every day I shed hesitations like November leaves, gaining clarity. Life feels compressed, focused. I know what I want from it. Another week of this and I will wonder what all that wavering and questioning was about.

What matters:

Relationships: obvious.

Connection: to the world here, now.

Words: “…in some ancient societies storytellers and healers were one and the same.” *

Joy: integration - heart, mind, soul, body

I see a road ahead that is my own. It winds up and down following the land. In the notes I keep from these days of isolation I see that I am no longer afraid to follow it.

“Also in Raissa, city of sadness, there runs an invisible thread that binds one living being to another for a moment, then unravels, then is stretched again between moving points as it draws new and rapid patterns so that at every second the unhappy city contains a happy city unaware of its own existence.” (Italo Calvino - Invisible Cities)

I balance the worry with gratitude, like everyone, seizing on the hints of a way we might choose to go in the aftermath. “What if everything shut down,” a young friend asks, “and we had to return to using horses?” For a moment, I imagine the clop of hooves on the roadway, feel my hand brush across a smooth flank, allowing myself a glimpse of a possible world. On the road below the house a car goes by, insistent. Our own cars sit calmly in the driveway waiting to be needed.

On our walks, we name the birds, the plants, the trees. We dig out the seed packets we hadn’t planned on planting and lay out the possibilities. It’s as if the earth is calling to us, drawing us into herself, the way I used to pull my babies into my chest to soothe them. All week the rain has been falling, shushing us, calming us.

I sign up for a class on bees. I stare out the window. Worry and gratitude surge and retreat. Prayers patter on the rooftop, hunger of the whole world for peace and safety, here, now. Somehow, listening, I discover I am not afraid.

*Terri Windling

these are the things my soul was made for

This morning I woke up a bit disoriented by the still-dark sky and had to blink at the clock for awhile to figure out what was wrong. After I dragged myself from bed, I texted a good morning to my daughter, and she returned with a disoriented, “Why are you up so early??” reply from France, who is still on the old clock. Outside, the frost had returned and all the daffodils were bent over at the knees, but the geese and the ducks, sun-centered as they ever are, were entirely unfazed by the new time-keeping. The sun came up and shortly thereafter, the food and water arrived; they honked and chattered their way out of the pen and into the new week. It’s a kind of simplicity that tugs at something deep within me.

In a somewhat serendipitous moment last week, I finally found a copy of Cal Newport’s Digital Minimalism (which so many of you have told me to read!) and spent the weekend highlighting it and reading passages out loud to my family. (I just love it when I find a book that echoes all the thinks I’ve been thinking and says it even better than I ever could.) I realized there are about 30-ish days left in Lent, so I’m beginning his Digital Detox today. No technologies “including apps, websites, and related digital tools that are delivered through a computer screen or a mobile phone and are meant to either entertain, inform, or connect you,” for 30 days. (Exceptions for essential work-related tech, which for me includes my blog and email on a limited basis. I’m also keeping limited text messaging and my photo journal since that is a daily project I don’t want to disrupt.)

My favorite part of this Detox though, is not just eliminating time-wasters and distractions, it’s the encouragement to craft a new life: “During this monthlong process, you must aggressively explore higher-quality activities to fill in the time left vacant by the optional technologies you’re avoiding. This period should be one of strenuous activity and experimentation.” I convinced my husband to join me (such a sport) so I’m looking forward to a fun month. I can see that this would be a good practice yearly - more like twice a year, if I’m honest - since technology has a way of sneaking up on you and hooking you when you don’t even realize it. I’m no longer tempted by social media, but don’t ask me how many times a day I read the New York Times and the comments. (Why??) That addiction to novelty is always needing to be tamed.

~ Truthfully, I feel like I am circling ever closer to the life I am supposed to be leading. I have a mental playlist of images and quotations, the witness of particular people, that I return to continually. And there are certain themes that spark a flare within me every single time I encounter them. It has only been recently that I’ve realized that they are endlessly fascinating to me because they are mine. These are the things my soul was made for and I will only ever be my best self when I fully embrace them.

Terry Tempest Williams wrote a story last year for Orion magazine in which she talked about her reciprocal relationship with nature, the way it is always calling to her and she is always calling to it, and how they are constantly calling each other into being. I think about that in times like this, how often I hear the world speaking to me, urging me toward what I know is my own truth. I do not mean truth of a theological nature, per se, but the truth of who I am in this earthly community and my purpose for being here.

A few years ago, maybe a decade or more, I was walking with my family on my Grandmother’s property. The kids were chasing each other around in a grove of Russian olive trees and the rest of us were climbing the rise along the horse pasture. It was a beautiful day, not too hot, though the sun was overhead and bright. We followed a line of old elm trees and I let the others wander ahead. I had heard an owl calling in the trees and wanted to look for it. I walked around, squinting up into the canopy with my city-blind eyes, but I couldn’t find anything. I gave up and left the trees behind, heading out into the open pasture. The kids were shouting and laughing, the voices of my husband and uncle drifting down the hill. There was a scent of sun-warmed sage in the air. I turned to look over the land my Grandmother’s family had homesteaded over a hundred years before. Just as I turned, there was a snap at my ear, a taffeta rustle that brought a kiss of cool air. It was a Great Horned Owl, skimming the space above my shoulder. It flew to the low branch of a tree directly in front of me and bobbed its head. I locked eyes with it for just a moment, dazed, grateful, astonished. Then it hunched itself and leapt into the air again, gone. All these years later I can still feel the pull of him, drawing me into a world of solitude, stillness, attentiveness, space. He was calling me to my own life, though it would take me so many more years before I recognized it as anything other than a memorable experience.

I believe there is purpose in my being here now, and so I believe the world is as much in need of my presence and witness as I was in need of that Owl’s and all the other living things that have graced my path. I believe it for all of us, whether we speak with the hurricane or the whale or through other languages of faith and presence.

This next month I’m going to be listening deeper, following the path I know I’m supposed to take.

Tell me, what are the messages your life is bringing you? Who are your messengers? I’d love to hear more.

peace keep you, friends,

tonia

EDITED: I don’t know what I was thinking when I wrote this earlier and talked about the New Moon. Clearly it’s a Full Moon now. Whoops! I wasn’t quick enough to edit it out before the post went out via email. :)

tether

Last year I decided to try keeping a log of my days.  Most nights, before I go to sleep, I pull a notebook out of my nightstand and make a list of bullet points about what I did:  Gym.  Ideas for short story.  Novel brainstorming.  Draft for newsletter.  Drove to Portland to pick up xyz.  Backgammon with Mark.  Read.  Etc.  It’s boring reading, but it’s an attempt to unlock what’s hidden in my mind.  Often, I find that writing down went for a walk, reminds me that while I was walking I was thinking about one of my kids, or listening to an important podcast, or contemplating the best use of our property in a climate-altered future.   So the bullet points sometimes take on a life of their own and morph into little essays or lines of poetry or plot ideas for stories. 

This is actually the hardest part of writing for me, I think, continually mining my own life, not letting thoughts sink to the warm dark compost of the subconscious, but pulling them out into the light and pinning them to a page like tiny black beetles, or powder-dusted moths.  (Of course, even these skewered specimens are part of the continual composting in the mind.) The writer’s job is to be attentive to what we would normally ignore, to give shape and form to the humus of ideas lying quiet and fertile within us.  

Not everything that gets pinned to the page is worth bringing to life though.  Journaling (even in the form of logging) helps uncover my worn-out themes and tired tropes.  I can see on my pages the fixation on some experiences and the underemphasis of others equally, if not more, important.  I can see the pattern of biases, the pockets of anger that indicate I’m not in a state of forgiveness yet.  I can see the doubts that rise and fall with my hormones, and the need to build more mental stamina. I can see my fears pounding for attention.

I think often about the subjectiveness of our lives.  Unless we are in the regular presence of small children or the sick or very elderly, much of contemporary life is a helium balloon, untethered from the tangible and the earthy.  Food arrives on shelves in packages, money exists in pixelated bank statements, trash gets toted off in trucks to unseen locations, beauty is nothing more than photogenics.  Anchoring, like decluttering, is a survival skill for the modern age.  I’m a word person, so journaling is one of my tethers.  My husband is not; I don’t imagine he would find a daily bullet list enlightening at all.  He’s more likely to discover his thoughts on a run or mowing the lawn, which he does.  The point is, we need to tie the balloon to something or it’s lost. 

But more than that is the need to know we exist in this world for a purpose.  “That we are here is a huge affirmation,” John O’Donohue says.  “Somehow life needed us and wanted us.”  Being attentive to the whispered messages of common life may be the writer’s job, but attentiveness to the messages of our individual lives is everyone’s job.  The disconnectedness that pervades our age leads to anger, fear, anxiety, and a sense of un-reality.  If we are here, it is not to be plagued by the spirit of the age, but because we have something to offer, something to combat it, to bring us together, connect us and nurture life. 

So, consider this post, rambling and mundane as it is, a whisper in the dark, an encouragement to dig and discover, a wave to bring you into harbor and an anchor to help you stay.  Find your way, then find your way.  We need you here.

If you want to share, tell me about your journaling habits, or the other ways you tether and discover yourself in the comments!