Now :: August 2024

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Hello friends,

Outrageously, it is August. Month of sun and smoke. My state continues its annual burning, though we are far away from any flames or damage here closer to the coast. I have been in classes this summer, trading stories with gentle-souled young people. My classmates are beautiful, like rocks you pull glistening from a riverbed, quietly colorful and laced with sparkle. Their stories are full of emotion, all with this reaching, searching quality that makes me want to be good to them and tell them everything will be okay.

Everything will be okay. Maybe we all need to hear that now.

Last night I was standing on my deck as the sun went down and the little bats were coming out to forage. I never have the patience or energy for star-gazing; my night sky pleasure is the little brown bats. I love the way they emerge at twilight and flit like secrets across your view. They live very neatly in the eaves of my house and the canopy of fir trees, but they are not just country creatures. They flutter through city and suburban skies without prejudice. Sometimes when I feel nearly smothered by the pollution of the internet outrage factories I think that every day the bats or the bumblebees or the wood ants are living in an incredible now, without worry, without outrage, or smugness, or despair.

Democracy can be in peril and the cedars dying and the state burning and relationships fractured and cancer licking at the door, and everything will be okay because I am alive, we are alive, now.

This idea settles me somehow. When I was younger, we lived for a day when we would fly away to glory. Here and now was a desolate place, twisted by sin and sharpened at the edges. Pray, wait, endure, long for that some day in the sky. I can look back and see the smudge of days I thought were ugly or beneath my notice, years that I wished away. Now, I just live. Gratefully.  

Now there are blackberries, and a free day, and a little dog who has adopted us. Now there is a kiss in the kitchen and dahlias in a vase. A call from a grown child. Good coffee. Time to write. All this tangled in with the grief and pain and weariness, of course. It is always a tangle. But which one will I stay with?

Soon my class will be done and my new young friends scattered again. I will get a few weeks of summer before I go back. There’s a tree I want to climb, a pasture I want to nap in, so many books I want to read. I would like to write here a little. Be quiet a little.

Do you have any plans for your now?

Birdy

 A little of this and that:

~ Reading the last of the Cromwell trilogy with Simon Haisell. I’ve been putting this one off because I know what’s coming, but the slow pace and the company of a group helps. Simon is a terrific host and offers so much insight into these dense, intelligent novels.

~ Listening to this repeatedly.

~ Been mixing things up by avoiding the streaming services and getting old-school DVD’s from the library on a Friday night. Sometimes it’s helpful not to have so many options. In the current stack: 

First Reformed,

Drive My Car,

Trainspotting

~ Just about to start The Perfectionist’s Guide to Losing Control

~ Why I Hate Instagram Now.

I’ve been off Instagram and all other similar platforms since 2019, but I sometimes scroll my husband’s very boring (sports-algorithmed) IG feed, so I can recognize this frustration. Remember when we thought we were using these platforms to connect with each other?

“Meta, Instagram’s parent company, still says its mission is giving people “the power to build community and bring the world closer together.” As it thwarts my efforts to see all the photos posted by people I know and chose to follow, I call bullshit. Injecting Reels in my feed, then refusing to let me abolish those diversions, hasn’t just put my loved ones in competition with viral nonsense––it has repeatedly subverted my attempts to ensure that my loved ones win.”~Conor Friedersdorf

~It’s the magnificent James Baldwin’s 100th birthday. Here’s a nice article about where to start with his books.

~Are Novel Covers Alienating Male Readers? These covers are alienating me, so I can see it!

OK! That’s about it for this month. Shall we meet here again soon?

Peace keep you, friends.

tonia

 

 

resistance :: June 20, 2023

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Once upon a time, last spring, a dozen small ducklings sailed in a box on the U.S.S. Postal Service and arrived at my door. The journey was short, but long. They traveled in the dark. Cold air seeped in through the holes in the box, the tiny cup of water ran dry. When I opened the hatch two days later, the ducklings peeped with relief and questions. I tipped them out onto the rug and they ran around in confused circles until I boiled an egg, chopped it into pieces, and floated it in the refilled water cup. The smell reminded them of home and tasted like a place they once knew. Their tiny heads got heavy and they fell asleep on the rug in a pile shaped like a box.

They grew and died, one by one. That same year in the woods a coyote family and a wandering bobcat grew sleek and clever on a diet of hopefully tended duck. When the slugs emerged the following spring to eat the daffodils, I mourned the gap in our small food-chain, but I did not open the emails from the hatchery. When I drove past the feed store, I stubbornly refused to read its announcements until hatchling season had come and gone.

It was not a time for ducklings. Everywhere, suddenly, people went to get a pint of ice cream, or a pair of pants, or a chance at a new life, and died. The people who were left began to run around in confused circles. No one knew what home smelled like anymore. Hardly anyone could sleep, but when they did, they lay alone in the dark, flinching at strange sounds and clicking their thirsty tongues.

My news feed in those days was buzzing with a story about a newly discovered flower somewhere west of the Pacific. It was a color no one had ever seen before (though the indigenous people of its home forest had a name for it so ancient it could no longer be pronounced). It would only bloom when held in the hand of a child still in its innocence. Beauty was in demand, as was innocence, so a black market of seeds sprang up almost instantly, but when the seeds arrived, the gardeners discovered all the children had grown up overnight. The seeds were put in the ground or thrown into the compost and forgotten. During this time, messiahs roamed the country selling sachets or truth serums, or more rarely, bottles of water said to quench every thirst.

One day I was sitting alone in my bedroom thinking of the ducklings. I remembered them sleeping, their bellies full of egg. It was foolish, but I took out my phone and looked at images of them fresh from the box: their downy yellow and black feathers, their dark little feet and beaks. There was a knock at the door; I answered it and found a woman standing there. I could tell immediately she was one of the messiahs. She had a slightly disheveled appearance and there was a twig in her hair. She spoke, but her voice was hoarse and I couldn’t understand her. This embarrassed me, so I looked down at her shoes. They were the kind of shoes you saw sometimes in old movies, little brown oxfords with a sensible heel, slightly scuffed. My thoughts about her softened. The woman rummaged in her bag. I did not want to buy truth serum or sachets, so I shook my head, but she held out her hand anyway. In the center of her palm was a shiny black seed. She put the seed in her mouth and swallowed it. When she opened her hand again, she was holding an egg.

“Come in,” I said immediately. She did. She took off her coat and set the egg on the table. We watched it for a moment to make sure it wouldn’t roll off. The egg was pale blue and incredibly beautiful.

“I would love some cake,” the woman said in her hoarse voice. I was startled. I began to say I had no cake, but the smell of baking had filled the room. On the table beside the egg was suddenly a cake, a pot of coffee.

“Of course,” I said, and we sat down together. The egg lay between us. Sometimes it rocked a little, as if something was inside — a small something, wanting to get out. We watched the egg and ate our cake. The rocking was so slight I sometimes thought I had imagined it.

“No one wants these anymore,” the woman said, hovering her coffee cup just above the egg’s trembling shell. Her voice was smoother now, but a little sad.

“I do,” I said, surprising myself. Between us, the egg was now shell pink. It became very still, almost as if it had never been alive. The woman and I glanced at each other and my cheeks grew hot at how bright my hope had been. She cleared her throat as if she might say something else, but then the egg give a little jolt. A crack appeared near the top. It widened until a small triangle of pink fell off. Beneath it, I could see a tiny, dark unfurling.

“It’s a petal!” the woman whispered.

“It’s a wing!” I shouted at the same moment.

…

At the sight of this small hatching, a word was on my tongue, a word so old I could almost remember how to say it. I whispered it out loud but not even my ears were quick enough to grasp it. The word curled itself into the air and out the window and spread across and across the sky.

…

Later, I gave the woman the spare bedroom. When I asked her name, she said, “Many lifetimes, all is coming.”* She was very tired. I politely removed the twig from her hair and left her alone to rest. The house was quiet, all the cake was gone. The egg was where we had left it, sitting in the center of the table, now green as a spring caterpillar, now purple as a bruise. It shed layers of shell, revealing first a glimpse of feathers, then a curl of leaf. It had been that way for hours, for days, for years. I went to the kitchen and got my big porcelain bowl, lined it with a towel and brought it back. As carefully as I could, I lifted the egg and held it for a moment. It was warm, pulsing with its hidden life. As I watched, its shell would crack and split then knit itself back together. Breaking and healing, breaking and healing. I brought it close to my face. It smelled like the damp rot of woods or the sharp saltiness of seahorses or the heat of blackberry leaves in August. I set it down as carefully as I could inside the bowl to wait.


*attributed to Sri K. Pattabhi Jois


Happy Solstice, my friends!

I’ve had that little story in my mind for weeks now. It felt right to get it on the page for this first day of summer. The world is as crooked and splintered as it’s ever been, but I’ve been listening to hope-givers lately. Sitting in the cool early morning sunshine. Weeding the oh-so-neglected garden in five minute bursts. Planting red flowers at every corner of the house. Reading one poem every day. Practicing yoga while it’s still dark. Learning the birds’ voices. Discovering a green heron, a trio of stags, a small ermine. Eating the strawberries as they ripen.

School is finished for the year! It’s been wonderful, exasperating, instructive, and challenging. I love it. But I’ve been looking forward to having the summer so I can get back to my own writing again. Of course, now that the summer is here, so is my internal resistance. I’m continually amazed at my ability to procrastinate about my art. If someone else gives me a task, no matter how inane, I will do it immediately. But I can endlessly put off writing or creating something of my own. Maybe you know the cycle? I plan to write first thing in the morning, but when the morning arrives I have a headache, or I didn’t sleep well, or I decide I really should clean the bathroom first. Or I actually sit down at my desk and write and then I am overwhelmed with fatigue and all I can think of is sleeping. If not fatigue, then a sudden conviction that I am on the wrong path and I was never supposed to write at all. That conviction can send me on an existential spiral for days (in which, of course, no writing gets done). It has taken me many years to recognize this pattern of resistance, but this year, I am more ready for it. I am finally at a place where I can start to ask why it happens. That’s going to be my focus this summer, actually, looking at whatever fear is keeping me from engaging with my own art.

Some things I am doing to conquer resistance and facilitate creativity this summer:

  • Re-reading Christian McEwen’s World Enough & Time very slowly

  • Journaling. So much journaling.

  • Limiting my screen/watching time by taking the browser off my phone (I already got rid of addictive apps) and reducing TV/movie watching to the bare minimum.

  • Walking without music/podcasts/audiobooks

  • Going to nature when I feel fatigue or other physical resistance

  • Setting specific, daily, SMALL, writing goals

  • Affirmations (e.g. My creativity is endless. I have time to write.)

  • Creating space for boredom (“It is in our idleness, in our dreams, that the submerged truth sometimes comes to the top.” ~ Virginia Woolf)

A few weeks ago around my birthday, I walked into town with a backpack of my old journals and sat in the park to read them. The combination of walking in silence and revisiting my old selves (I have many, don’t you?) was a pretty potent experience. At 52, I can see so much of my path now, can see how far I’ve come and how steadily I’ve kept to the same goals even though my experience day by day has not felt that way at all. I’ve been an indifferent journaler most of my life, but still, the words have accumulated. They’ve marked out the edges of my experience and my growth as a woman. I feel so grateful for all the imperfect attempts, all the scraps collected, all the longing and trying recorded there. I’ll keep at it. I have a feeling it’s going to unlock some good things for me this season.

I’d love to hear about your experiences with resistance, or your journaling practice, or whatever comes to mind. I always read your emails and comments and do my very best to respond to each one.

Thanks again for being here.

tonia

Some hope-givers I’ve enjoyed recently:

Reading:

Thinking about:

under pressure :: June 2022

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I’ve been walking. Early in the morning, as near to sunrise as I can manage, when the birds are most vocal. If I time it right, I have the trail to myself. At least, without other humans. There are plenty of other beings out at dawn: rabbit, newt, raccoon, snail, osprey, turtle, deer. I’ve been walking daily ever since a friend pointed me to Libby DeLana. Every Damn Day has been her motto for a decade. I’m at Day 62 now, each walk dutifully recorded with the time and weather in a little notebook. Even after the wedding, when I was so tired the air felt as thick as water and every movement was like swimming against a current, we pulled over to the side of the road and took a deliberate walk through a field of lupines. 0.11 miles that day, but still, a walk. I counted it. Other days, when I’ve been tired, or sick, I’ve looped our small woods (the equivalent of once around the block) and been glad for those few minutes of respite.

I like the simplicity of Every Damn Day. There’s no decision for me to make. I don’t have to decide whether I can fit it in or if I feel like exercising, I just get up and go. I wish I could apply this philosophy to other areas of my life, like writing or journaling or meditation, but I’ve realized I have capacity for one daily commitment and no more. Since this one has so many overlapping benefits, it beats out all other options. In one walk I get movement, time in nature, solitude, and stress relief. I need it. Because the truth is, I’m tired.

I keep thinking that I will bounce back. After this class is over, once the wedding is done, once this project or that is done, I will feel more refreshed. But when I cross whatever milestone I set for myself, I get to the other side and realize I’m still exhausted.

This spring I took a class on Global Climate Change. When I told my daughter I signed up for it, she said, “Mom. Is that wise?” Well, yes it was. I am not the type of person who likes to avoid difficult things. I need information; I need to see the whole picture and know the truth. Otherwise, I feel like I’m lying to myself. So I took the class, and now I know and I can process the sensational from the actual. It helps. But the truth is so very hard and I think it’s contributing to my exhaustion. We’ve had an old-fashioned spring here in the Pacific Northwest, with rain and cold all the way up to the Solstice. I loved it. But even as I loved it, the whole time I was thinking, enjoy it, this may be the last cool spring you’ll know. And that’s only one of the issues that weighs constantly on my mind.

We are under a lot of psychic pressure these days.

i would cry—there is so much grief

today and always

how even now, a haint riddled with bullets

has perched herself on my stoop

to warn of all the little deaths

headed my way.

Juneteenth, 2020 by Miriama J. Lockington

In the fall, I will be full time at the university (in-person for the first time) and so I had a lot of ideas about what to do this summer. Finish the novel, paint the duck house, redecorate the spare bedroom, begin a short story collection around the experiences of living, then leaving, Christianity. But every time I think about doing any of those things I go back to bed.

I’m old enough now to know that the body is wise and can be trusted. Reluctance in the face of progression is just a bell ringing to tell me that something needs examination. So I went walking and gave myself some space to examine. When I came home it was with the realization that this is not the summer for a lot of physical and mental exertion. This is a summer to rest and prepare for what will be difficult intellectual and social work in the years ahead. And I discovered - when I let go of my expectations - that what I really want to do, more than anything, is to keep walking, to be outside as much as possible, and to read, read, read.

So I’ve released myself from the task list and given myself a new job: to walk every day, and to get through as much of my to-read shelves as possible this summer. (It’s an embarrassing amount of books, but I’ll do my best.) That’s it.

This morning I was re-reading Rebecca over breakfast and I came to the passage where the narrator talks about her current life, living from hotel to hotel. Their days are simple, she says, and sometimes boring, but

“…boring is a pleasing antidote to fear. We live very much by routine…We have tried wireless, but the noise is such an irritant, and we prefer to store up our excitement, the result of a cricket match played many days ago means so much to us.”

It struck me how slow life was once (for those affluent enough not to have to scrape every minute towards survival, anyway). Waiting days to hear the score of a cricket match and savoring the anticipation. Our bodies and minds evolved within that kind of slowness. How natural that we should always be trying to get back to it.

If you are interested, tell me if you are feeling this collective psychic weight, and how you are dealing with it. What are you craving? How are you making it happen? I’d love to hear.

I hope to be in this space more often this summer. Let’s see how it goes. xo

lots of love,

tonia

p.s. I included a few wedding photos at the bottom, including a glimpse of (nearly) the whole family, for those who have been here long enough to watch those kids grow up!

Some notable books from the last weeks:

~Independent People// Halldór Laxness. A slow, deep burn of a book with a seam of black humor running quietly through it. It’s set in Iceland at the turn of the 20th century, when the old ways and the new, progressive ideals were bumping into each other. Bjartur, the main character, is a brute in just about every way, but I suspect Americans, at least, will not find his blind commitment to Independence and self-sufficiency unfamiliar. This, and other novels, helped Laxness win the Nobel Prize. It’s worth the read.

~Less Is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World//Jason Hickle I’m going to be giving copies of this one to several friends. An easy, engaging read, but Hickle manages to show the reality of our capitalist systems, why they function as they do, and why they can never, ever save us or the planet. He also shows what an alternate system could look like. Highly recommend.

~The Little Ice Age: How Climate Made History//Brian Fagan. I came across this by accident among some used books and picked it up since I was studying the same topic at the time. Did you know there was an Ice Age in the Middle Ages? It caused all kinds of havoc and changed the fate of nations and governments all over the world. If you want to understand how climate change is more than altered weather, you might find this account helpful.

~Eleutheria//Allegra Hyde. This one is worth noting because it’s at the beginning of what I suspect is a whole tide of eco-literature written by authors who have come of age in the shadow of climate change. In this one, a sheltered young woman (raised by survivalist parents) tries to find a way to save the changing world and makes a mess of things.

~Fiber Fueled, Will Bulsiewicz - Great overview of gut health and how to stay healthy through diet. (Hint: eat lots and lots of different plants!)

And, finally, some scenes from the wedding. (Excuse my half-closed eyes in the last photo, but all the kids are smiling!)

all Wedding photos: Shelby @ Marley Kimbo Media

January, Fourth week :: 2022

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Most of last week I kept a silent(ish) retreat. I didn’t go anywhere, I was just at home, opting out of the extra noise. I kept the phone off except for a few texts with loved ones, no music or podcasts, no television or movies. I wanted space to think deeply, to listen to my inner self for awhile. But my brain didn’t cooperate. It kept churning up weird bits of media I’d previously digested - pop songs, advertisements, movie scenes - like some kind of mental off-gassing. I began to feel uneasy, imagining my neural pathways coated with the greasy streaks of junk food culture. I considered the disturbing question: what if at the end of my life all that flashes before my eyes is an 80’s soda commercial and a scene from an Avenger’s movie? I might laugh about that idea if I didn’t recognize the way my mind latches onto such things, if I didn’t know those things were designed to manipulate my attention and stay lodged in my consciousness.

At the end of my allotted quiet time, I ran an errand and came home to find piles of feathers in the yard. Not the scatter of a sparrow or a blue jay (or one of my ducks, thank goodness); something bigger, different, something I don’t quite recognize. I kept going out to visit these remains, trying to imagine what, who, when, how. Was I asleep in my bed when it happened? At the grocery store? Eating dinner? The thought disturbs me unreasonably: life - or rather, death - occurring right out in the yard where I might have seen it, but didn’t. It tangles up with the week’s earlier feelings of regret: what else have I not seen? Have I missed what’s important? Am I a part of the real world or only the manufactured one?

For the rest of the day I felt the weight of these questions. How much am I shaped by what I truly value - the sacredness of earth and her creatures, my relationships with others - and how much am I shaped by the noise and expectations of a world that dismays me?

I went out at twilight, doubt clinging to my heels, and was startled by a deer, my old familiar, grazing on the pasture. She stood gently, her neck bent to the earth, entirely undisturbed by my presence. Deer have always arrived for me in moments like these; I read her like I once read scriptures. She was there for herself, but in another way she had come to comfort me, to remind me I cannot be ejected from my belonging. It was a grace, and I felt it as such. I called to her, she flicked an ear, we shared the last of the day’s light and then I went back to the house unburdened for a while, determined to stay a few more days in the quiet. I feel a spark of hope that there is something more inside, something else that might arise if I just give it the time - and silence - it needs.

We all know how to turn off screens, at least in theory; here are some other quiet practices to try:

Carry a book of poetry with you for waiting times. Or just look around, observing what other people are doing.

Don’t check news headlines.

In conversation, listen and encourage other people to talk while you say less.

Turn down the lights and sit in the semi-dark.

Welcome boredom and stay with it.

Doze off any time you can.

Sing to yourself.

Practice pranayama.

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Gathered this week:

~ A friend sent me this lovely little dance clip.

~ Your Bubble Is Not the Culture // Even though this article is about popular culture, there’s a lot to take note of in regards to how we perceive the world around us.

~ My family is practicing yoga with Tim these days. He’s got loads of free videos on youtube. He focuses a lot on correct form and building strength, which is just what I need. Plus he’s corny and sweet. (His subscription service is also amazing and well-worth the money - especially if you don’t go to the gym anymore, like us.)


~ I am happy living simply

“I am happy living simply:

like a clock, or a calendar.

Worldly pilgrim, thin,

wise - as any creature. To know

the spirit is my beloved. To come to things - swift

as a ray of light, or a look.

To live as I write: spare - the way

God asks me - and friends do not.”

(Marina Tsvetaeva, 1919, HT: Holly Wren Spaulding)

…

There are a few new readers here (welcome!) so I thought it would be nice to show myself and say hello.

Some things you might want to know about me - just for fun:

*I’ve been writing online since 2005. I’ve changed A LOT in that time.

*I write serious and live happy. Mostly. :)

*Enneagram 1/INFJ (Also a Gemini, which makes no sense to me.)

*I like kindness, fidelity, integrity, and generosity in people and I’m generally attracted to people in the margins.

*I dislike arrogance, proselytizing, over-confidence, loud voices, and selfishness. Also, those sheet cakes that come from the grocery store and people who don’t put their carts away when they’re done with them.

*I despise fundamentalism, whether it’s on the left or on the right.

*Part city/part country.

*Glasses, braces, mullet, perm, religion: middle school was hell.

*Definitely swear a little.

*Herbal tea, black tea, coffee with lots of oat milk, and red wine.

*I like talking to people who read here, so please say hello!

That’s all for now!

peace keep you, my friends,

tonia

December, Fourth week :: 2021

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The chair where the owl perched is covered in snow now, but I don’t ever pass it without a tiny uptick in my pulse, a split second when I wonder if that blocky brown shape will be waiting there, will fool my eye again. At first, I’d thought a limb had fallen from the apple tree in the night and somehow landed upright on the arm of the adirondack chair, but a moment later, it swiveled its impossible head and fixed me with an amber stare. Twice this autumn, it came to this spot; two days in a row I stood frozen, pinned like a moth under its gaze until at last, it blinked, unfolded its wings, and disappeared into the trees.

Biologists say that an owl sighted during the day means that a disturbance has occurred - it has suffered a loss of habitat, a disruption in hunting patterns, or maybe, a lost mate - an affirmation of the folklore of North American Indigenous peoples who say the owl is a bad omen, a messenger of death. I joked about it with friends later, my own early morning harbinger of doom perching on a pink adirondack chair.

I don’t know if the owl I saw is one who regularly lives in our woods. During most of the year I can lie in bed and hear several calling through the open window. Their whoo-whooing among the night trees is as reassuring and comforting as this daytime appearance was unsettling. Despite my joking, the weeks after the owl showed itself to me were a storm of loss. Our new dog was hit on the road and killed instantly, relationships frayed, depression stalked loved ones, plans upended and collapsed, I lost months of writing and I couldn’t find the nerve to sit down and write again. I’m not particularly susceptible to omens and signs, but the owl unnerved me more than I’d like to admit. I feel the ghost of it hovering around that chair every morning I go by. Its remembered shape is a fixed point, a talisman of my own vulnerability, but also a symbol of another year of disruption and loss for all of us. It hovers over all the breakdowns we’ve endured, the painful exposure of our true beliefs, the shock of our disconnections and malaise, the revealed power of the market, the media, and the moronic, our fear of getting sick, our proximity to death. Of course I flinch when I think of seeing it again - how much more loss will we face?

A great deal, most likely. I feel the world I once knew passing by, receding into the past. It is not the owl I flinch from, it is the demand that I look truth in the eye and see it as it really is. I want to continue on in my comfort, believing untenable beliefs, assuming my neighbors and I agree, feeling confident that someone somewhere will make disease and extinction and turmoil go away, but that luxury is past. The owl stares at me without blinking and it won’t look away.

Strangely, now that the shock of these realities has settled in, I arrive at the end of the year feeling a little steadier. The owl has come. Change is here. Death has arrived. But I am strong enough to live within it. I know what lies ahead requires courage, as well as creativity and hope, and that’s what I want to mine in 2022.

As MFK Fisher wrote: “When the wolf is at the door one should invite him in and have him for dinner.”

I’ll be writing more about that and the image/theme I’ve chosen for the new year later. In the meantime, I hope you are enjoying this quiet-ish week between the holidays. I’m looking forward to a new year of sharing and learning with you all.

Happy New Year!

tonia