[L, diary, ephēmeris] 1) BLOG

This will be an imperfect post, brief but heartfelt.  My inner critic has been sent to sit silently in the corner for the duration of this writing but she's an impatient wench, even now tapping her foot, a pencil in one hand and a long list of tasks in the other. She's already attempting to edit words as I think how to begin.

A disturbing email arrived from a special friend. 

Loyal and sensitive, respectful, he is a dedicated and disciplined man in intellectual endeavors, as well as a talented, free-spirited musician, singer, and uninhibited dancer.

His email said he'd been struggling with rejection;  the second time within a few months when a negative opinion of his qualifications had been expressed publicly.

A lot has been written about vulnerability, and the shaming effects to us when stringent comparisons of our efforts are made.  Sadly, our inner critic's voice is often stronger than praise we hear from  loved ones. Days, weeks, even months and years can retain the pain of feeling not good enough at something, stunting our ability to feel confident enough to fully embrace within our lives.  Why is that? I wondered.  Then fragments of a story by Todd Walton drifted slowly into view.

The story was a chapter in Walton's Under the Table Books. It was an exchange between a young boy and an old man, the boy listing exciting visions of his future that were rising from his practice of new-found skills.   Delighted, I recognized his dreams as ones I'd serendipitously experienced in my life, and had joyfully, affirmatively, self-congratulated them with a Todd Walton blog post, many years ago.

The old man's affirmation of they boy's plans was exactly the response needed for my friend to hear., but I couldn't remember EXACTLY what the quote was. So, I went in search for the post. Found it. Began reading the post, smiling, anticipating the key comment at the end. Reached the end.

It wasn't there. 

Oh, it was, sort of.  But only a mis-mashed summation of the story's final paragraph, not the succinct summation I remember intending, had thought I'd been leading up to, but had somehow lost my way.  Without even recognizing the failure. Or the lack of cohesion that must have had readers scratching their heads after I blithely posted.

My inner critic was now out of her chair and had me by the throat; I was choking with shame.  

"WHY ARE YOU ALWAYS SO FEY?! 

WHAT A FOOL YOU ARE!

YOU ARE ALWAYS THOUGHTLESSLY WHIRLING THROUGH THE MOST SIGNIFICANT PARTS OF EVERYTHING, DANCING OUT THE DOOR ON YOUR WAY TO WHO-KNOWS-WHAT-STUPID THING NEXT!"

Perhaps, when we were young, when we were just learning how to do something new, we didn't hear often enough the words, 'You are a perfectly fine person just as you are!'   That would have stopped our inner critics from gaining their crippling powers. 

For myself and the imperfect blog post made several years ago, accepting the goof and probably annotating it with a link to this one may suffice, but to my friend I can now send these supportive, fully affirmative words he deserves--words my inner critic is now memorizing in her corner--with the hope that my friend's personal nemesis does the same:

"Last night by the fire at my cave I sang Mr. Laskin the start of my song.  At first when I finished singing he didn’t say anything.  He just stared at the flames for a long time, and then he added a few twigs and said, “Derek, the thing is, you’ve begun to bear fruit, and that, above all, is our purpose here.  Bless you and your song.  Don’t ever listen to anyone who says you aren’t a perfectly wonderful soul.”

OUR FORCE FOR COUNTERACTING CHAOS IS CONNECTION

Maria Popova recently began another pertinent Brain Pickings post that, even though written at the start of Covid19, continues to nag me to upload into a blog post.  She began with: We might spend our lives trying to discern where we end and the rest of the world begins

Below, I've summarized her essay, based on Jan Mooallem's book, This Is Chance!: The Shaking of an All-American City, A Voice That Held It Together,  into a shorter version that resonates with my expanding experience of this epic period of world events, the last being relevant to having to close my Saturday Art with local children--loved as if relinquishing my own--for safer environs.

 

Alexis de Tocqueville

Democracy in America

 

“At certain periods a nation may be oppressed by such insupportable evils as to conceive the design of effecting a total change in its political constitution; at other times… the existence of society itself is endangered. Such are the times of great revolutions… But between these epochs of misery and confusion there are periods during which human society seems to rest and mankind to take breath. This pause is, indeed, only apparent, for time does not stop its course for nations any more than for [individuals]; they are all advancing every day towards a goal with which they are unacquainted.

 

“There are certain epochs in which the changes that take place in the social and political constitution of nations are so slow and imperceptible that [people] imagine they have reached a final state; and the human mind, believing itself to be firmly based upon sure foundations, does not extend its researches beyond a certain horizon.”

 

 

Jon Mooallem, Author

 This Is Chance!: The Shaking of an All-American City, A Voice That Held It Together

 

“…there are moments when the world we take for granted instantaneously changes; when reality is abruptly upended and the unimaginable overwhelms real life. We don’t walk around thinking about that instability, but we know it’s always there: at random, and without warning, a kind of terrible magic can switch on and scramble our lives.”

 

 

Genie Chance,

letter to her concerned mother in aftermath of Alaskan earthquake:

 

“I must admit that during that first dark, cold night, as I began to understand the tremendous scope of the problems that would be facing us in the months and years to come, I toyed with the idea of sending the children out on a plane to stay with you until everything settled down. Working there in the headquarters, where the reports were coming in from the survey teams throughout the city, I realized that there could possibly be a real health hazard for some time to come. I realized that the schools might not be able to resume for an indefinite period of time. It looked for a few hours as if the damage had been so extensive to all utilities and streets that even a semblance of normal life could not be resumed for weeks or months…

 

…But this was just a fleeting thought in a weary mind. I would have been ashamed of myself had it not been for the next thought that came so swiftly: We must be together… That night I saw strain, heavy hearts, and fear in people separated from their loved ones by the sudden disaster… As long as we are together, we are confident of the future…

 

That Good Friday night I knew that we had survived miraculously. And for this reason, there must be a purpose to our lives. Apparently the children must sense this, too. For they have remained calm. They have been fully aware of the emergency, but they have not feared. We are proud that they are such dependable, responsible youngsters. I would not undermine their confidence in the future — in themselves — by sending them away for safety.

What is safety, anyway? How can you predict where or when tragedy will occur? You can only learn to live with it and make the best of it when it happens. These children have learned this — and they are all the better for it. They were in the midst of devastation. And they feel that they are a part of the tremendous task ahead in rebuilding this land we love… The children are not afraid. Their father and I are not afraid. Please, don’t you fear for us.”

 

Jon Mooallem, Author

 This Is Chance!: The Shaking of an All-American City, A Voice That Held It Together

 

“What is safety, anyway? Genie seemed to be conceding how randomly our lives are jostled and spun around; that nothing is fixed; that even the ground we stand on is in motion. Underneath us, there is only instability. Beyond us, there’s only chance.

But she’d also recognized a way of surviving such a world. It was what Genie had created in Anchorage that weekend by talking on the radio, and what she planned to stay focused on now: not an antidote to that unpredictability, exactly, but at least a strategy for withstanding it, for wringing meaning from a life we know to be unsteady and provisional. The best she and her family could do was to hold on to one another.

 

Our force for counteracting chaos is connection.” 

"Briefly, I now have two of the most wonderful books, written by Marie Popova. One is called THE VELOCITY OF BEING, Letters to Young Readers. Here is a drawing discovered after class, influenced by this book:

The literary part of the book is a little above the kids but so gorgeously illustrated they are continually drawn to it, responding to the stories within the letters as best they can.  With almost non-exisistant English, Chay Chay had no idea what the letter says about the power of reading, but the illustration reached him, motivated him, and I had the private joy of discovering his path in the casual clutter left behind at the end of the day.

    

What delights me most is that I can find a match for every one of his illustrations except the figure at the top of his copied ladder and moon...I think he has marvelously inserted himself in it.     What do you think?"

 

Later, this email was edited into a larger post but the kids continue to surprise me with private examples of the book's continuing influence.  Last week, this was discovered in Resty Joy's drawing book:

There's a funny story about my not realizing she'd copied/edited it from Popova's book.  I'd taken it seriously, as if SHE were the one who'd discovered the described note in her drawing, had found it inside one of OUR books, so I was almost frenzied searching through the bookcase seeking a book old and worn enough to be the one...until she produced Popova's  Velocity of Being.  Here's the page that inspired her:

Confession Time:  Lately, I've been feeling emotionally unable to effectively continue holding Saturday Art with the kids, as well as having the energy to maintain this website. I was about to pull the plug on both.

The last four months of full focus on hauling PILAR, the re-stepping of her masts, re-rigging them, too, has been intense; ultimately rewarding but depleting on several levels. So, while my boat's needs were being met, the kid's needs were not. That morning, I'd gotten frustrated and disgusted with Resty Joy's lack of interest in an, admittedly hasty ('busy-work') word game, given to the others.  Later, after my bad attitude towards hers, but prior to being suddenly allowed to see what she'd been working on, I'd seen her sitting alone in the far corner of the room, hunched over her drawing book with a large and droopy pillow on her head, and knew I was failing.  Time to quit.

Everything changed when she freely brought me her book to show what she'd been working on.  This, from a child who hates having her photograph taken, who routinely speaks so low she cannot be heard then says, 'Never-mind' when asked to repeat what she'd said, and routinely answers, 'I don't know,' to any inquiry for a personal preference...though she does know because she's extraordinarily bright when it sneaks out of her.  No wonder I'd thought that the lonely letter found in the artwork story of a library book, asking someone to write to the author, had inflamed my own guilt for earlier being dismissive towards her!

Sometimes the way she designs her art work, or asks a difficult question, or repeatedly watches one special video of a Israeli/Palistinian Women's Peace March, I am filled with awe. Humbled. 

Saturday, it was clear that it is not for me to judge how much or how fast what I have to offer bears fruit.  Selfishly, it bears fruit in ME, so I will continue to provide a Saturday place of exposure to exploration for the children to visit.  And, I will continue to post what we do there...in all it's gloriously messy humanity. 

In that, Maria Popova guides me, again:

 

"Looking back on the most important things I have learned about life, I keep returning to a central paradox of our culture: We know that the flower doesn’t go from bud to blossom in one spritely burst, yet we crave stories of overnight success and spontaneous self-actualization, disinterested in the tedium of the blossoming, in the incremental ripening by which we become who we are, the innumerable tiny choices, the imperceptibly small steps by which we pave the path to our own destiny in the very act of walking it. We are each a continuous becoming, our future a rosary of presents strung along the strand of presence — presence with the smallest corpuscles of existence: the smell of a neighbor’s curry slipping through the window cracked in midwinter, the atlas of wrinkles on the hands of the cashier scanning the box of strawberries at the grocery store. Sensing, noticing — the raw materials of presence, and thus the elemental stardust of our becoming."

"Stubbornly writing the story of our own finitude and impermanence,

is our only true homecoming to wholeness..."

--Maria Popova, paraphrasing Patti Smith--

Last week's Midweek Special, a post celebrating twelve years of brilliant writing from Maria Popova, was particularly inspiring so I wish to introduce her to those who may not yet have had the rewarding experience.

     "Because I believe that our becoming, like the synthesis of meaning itself, is an ongoing and dynamic process, I’ve been reluctant to stultify it and flatten its ongoing expansiveness in static opinions and fixed personal tenets of living. But I do find myself continually discovering, then returning to, certain core values. While they may be refined and enriched in the act of living, their elemental substance remains a center of gravity for what I experience as myself.

     I first set down some of these core beliefs, written largely as notes to myself that may or may not be useful to others, when Brain Pickings turned seven (which kindred spirits later adapted into a beautiful poster inspired by the aesthetic of vintage children’s books and a cinematic short film). I expanded upon them to mark year nine. Today, as I round the first decade of Brain Pickings, I feel half-compelled, half-obliged to add a tenth learning, a sort of crowning credo drawn from a constellation of life-earned beliefs I distilled in a commencement address I delivered in the spring of 2016."

Click Here to read all ten in the order that they were written, prefaced by her personal story and then closing with a list to her favorite posts, inspired by those she most loved reading and writing about in her first decade of Brain Pickings.  The list is so meaty that it is difficult to select a favorite, but here's mine, from year nine:

1. Seek out what magnifies your spirit. Patti Smith, in discussing William Blake and her creative influences, talks about writers and artists who magnified her spirit — it’s a beautiful phrase and a beautiful notion. Who are the people, ideas, and books that magnify your spirit? Find them, hold on to them, and visit them often. Use them not only as a remedy once spiritual malaise has already infected your vitality but as a vaccine administered while you are healthy to protect your radiance.

Popova and her linked selection of authors and artists will magnify your spirit. 

 “What you produce is not necessarily always sacred…what IS sacred is the time you spend working on the project, and what that time does to expand your imagination, and what that expanded imagination does to transform your life.”

Elizabeth Gilbert, BIG MAGIC, Creative Living Beyond Fear

Last February of this year, I began writing a post that languished unfinished until recent prods from numerous sources, old & new books, pod casts and personal doubts about effectiveness, have finally prompted a return to discussing the art of valuing creativity in our everyday lives.  I'd written:

       "Yesterday I scheduled an afternoon of editing a manuscript with a local woman who, every Saturday for the past fourteen years, has cleaned and done laundry for me.  This morning, before I'd read Clint's post, The Origin Story,  from his example of George Morton's conviction,"...beauty can emanate from darkness as well as light." I'd filled numerous journal pages echoing his thoughts as they concerned the life-story Ludy  has been composing very Saturday afternoon. I concluded: But it can shine from the in-between, as well. Perhaps, even more poignantly?

Comparisons between Morton's life and Ludy's, the access to opportunities he had despite an equally poor start in life., pained me.  Ludy's output was that of an aging wife and mother, sixty-plus years of life in a rural village of native bamboo and Nipa-roofed homes, where her natural talent for storytelling was hindered but not diminished by a severe lack of exposure to any literature or even the paper/paper/time to write them. Ludy's output and level of skill was nil until she began participating in the One Candle Schoolhouse activities, and pitifully little, since.  What she has written, and had published, would be barely glanced or tolerated by most.  No possibility of competing for recognition, and yet....she deserves it.

Why? Because life for all of us will be enriched when we can re-frame our references for recognizing art we unconsciously express within daily lives. Below are a few supporting quotes that encourage me when I begin to question the worth of my own efforts:

BIG MAGIC, Creative Living Beyond Fear

                     by Elizabeth Gilbert

(pg.108) …after a certain age, no matter how you’ve been spending your time, you have very likely earned a doctorate in living…we need you to reveal to us what you know, what you have learned, what you have seen and felt…you already possess absolutely everything you need to possess in order to live a more creative life—except the confidence…but we need you…need your work in order to enrich and inform our own lives…you are already creatively legitimate by nature of your mere existence here among us.”

(pg.202) “…our ancestors always operated with a sense of being in a reciprocal emotional relationship with their physical surroundings.  Whether they felt that they were being rewarded by Mother Nature or punished by her, at least they were engaged in a constant CONVERSATION with her.”

DANCING AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD,

                      by Ursula K. LeGuin

(pg.186) … discussing a book she wrote about a non-existent tribe, the Kesh:

"Most Kesh poetry was occasional--the highest form, according to Goethe--and much of it was made by what we call amateurs, people doing poetry as a common skill, the way people do sewing or cooking, as an ordinary and essential part of being alive. The quality of such poetry sewing, and cooking of course varies enormously. We have been taught that only poetry of extremely high quality is poetry at all; that poetry is a big deal, and you have to be a pro to write it or in fact, to read it.  This is what keeps a few poets and many, many English departments alive.  That's fine, but I was after something else:  the poem not as fancy pastry but as bread; the poem not as masterpiece but as life-work."

BIG MAGIC, Creative Living Beyond Fear

                     by Elizabeth Gilbert

(pg.219)  “There’s a hole in our world from all the art people did not make—there’s a hole in US from the loss of their work—and I cannot imagine that was ever anyone’s divine plan.”

 

(pg.259) “You were born to create, regardless of the outcome.  You will never lose trust in the creative process, even when you don’t understand the outcome.”

(pg.263) “…hold your head high. You made it; you get to put it out there.  Never apologize for it, never explain it away, never be ashamed of it. You did your best with what you knew, and you worked with what you had, in the time that you were given. You were invited and you showed up, and you simply cannot do more than that.”

THE PEOPLE I LOVE THE BEST (last paragraph)

                    Poem by Marge Piercy