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Running Stitch

Running Stitch

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In his book The Old Ways, Robert McFarlane talks of ancient chalk roads and of sea lanes. Any path or trail is worthy of his inspection, and what he sees when he looks is informed not just by poetry but by history.

I’ll be writing quite a lot about this book, I know. For now, here’s McFarlane riffing on the etymology of writing and walking:

Our verb ‘to write’ at one point in its history referred specifically to track-making: the Old English writan meant ‘to incise runic letters in stone’; thus one would ‘write’ a line by drawing a sharp point over and into a surface — by harrowing a track.

 As the pen rises from the page between words, so the walker’s feet rise and fall between paces, and as the deer continues to run as it bounds from the earth, and the dolphin continues to swim even as it leaps again and again from the sea, so writing and wayfaring are continuous activities, a running stitch, a persistence of the same seam or stream.

Running stitch: that’s one I won’t forget.

Mary Oliver: An Appreciation

Mary Oliver: An Appreciation

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The poet Mary Oliver died on January 17. She won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for her poetry. But it was her prose that I found most marvelous. I discovered it a few years ago, and her book Upstream is beside me now — with such a flurry of Post-it tabs that it looks as if I’ve bookmarked every page.

Oliver writes of the natural world, of shaggy dunes and the blue-black of pond water; of fields and woods “and the possibility of the world salvaged from the lords of profit.” We should teach our children the names of hepatica and sassafras and wintergreen, she says. Why? Because “attention is the beginning of devotion.”

Oliver acknowledges her debts to those who came before, the “immeasurable fund of thoughts and ideas, from writers and thinkers long gone into the ground — and inseparably from those wisdoms because demanded by them, the responsibility to live thoughtfully and intelligently.”

Now Oliver is gone. And yet she is with me now more than ever. I read her often because she is a writer’s writer who whispers — no, shouts — do it, do it now, because if you don’t, you will always be sorry. “The most regretful people on earth,” she writes, “are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.”

Morning Workout

Morning Workout

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An elliptical in the basement creates a delicious quandary. When I have 20 extra minutes in the morning, do I read, write …. or work out?

Some days the answer is driven purely by my need for tea. If it’s severe, I settle in on the couch with my laptop and this blank screen in front of me. Tea and blog-writing go together beautifully.

But on days when the muscles feel limber enough to jump on the machine right away, well, then that is what I do. The blog-writing and tea drinking just have to wait.

Such was the situation this morning, which means I’m cranking out a post 10 minutes before a meeting—and there’s no tea in sight.

Such are the perils of affluence.

NaNoWriMo

NaNoWriMo

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It’s a big day here, the birthdays of Celia and my brother Drew, the day before my work trip to Malawi … and the final day of National Novel Writing Month.

On November 2, I found a 500-word story I’d worked on years ago, and, on a whim, decided to turn it into a novel. The goal for National Novel Writing Month (fondly known as NanoWriMo) is 50,000 words in 30 days. I wasn’t sure I could do this, but I did some quick math and realized that if I wrote 1,667 words a day I could produce a novel. It wouldn’t be a great book, but it would be a book.

I’m proud to say that I crossed the finish line late last night with 50, 009. But I’m still trying to finish the novel. The  main character’s husband is stuck in Chicago when he needs to be in Lexington. The main character herself, a realtor, is juggling two important sales, at least one of which could tank. And there are other stray plot lines flying around like loose wires after a big storm.

In short, I need another another hour and another thousand words.

But then, I hope, I will be done.

Happy NaNoWriMo!

(A P.S. to this one. It took me several more hours, but I finally finished about 7 p.m. The final product is about 54,000 words. One of these days, I may actually read it!)

Calmer Computing

Calmer Computing

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It was a day to rake leaves, plant bulbs, do laundry and prepare the house for visitors later this week. It was also a day to be frustrated by various computer glitches.

There was a new system update with all of its attendant woes, the retrieval of passwords once entered automatically, the held breath that formerly well-oiled systems would start up again.

There was the banishment of junkware called Gilpierro, which slipped onto my machine when I was downloading a schedule from a third party. That took about two hours.

With each snafu I worried that I wouldn’t be able to access this blog or my email or the document I’d just been working on. But so far, so good.

I like to think I’m becoming a little saner during times of software distress. One might not notice this by looking at me, but I have a little more faith in the power of machinery than I used to. It’s a calmer computing I engage in now.

(The photo doesn’t have much to do with computing, but it’s a calm scene.)

Waylaid

Waylaid

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It was one of those days, one that seemed to start without me. I meant to write when I came back from my walk, but was waylaid …  then waylaid some more. And now that it’s evening I wonder, why bother?

Because writing here is a creative comfort, a way to soothe jangled nerves.

Because writing here is a way to celebrate walking, which also soothes jangled nerves. (Notice a theme?)

Because I try to write every workday no matter what.

Because there is much to be grateful for, even on a wind-whipped November evening.

Morning Post

Morning Post

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Lately, because of a new glitch in the blogging platform, I’ve been writing many of my posts the night before. This is not the way I like to blog. There is something about the morning that suits me.

Maybe it’s because the muse is more active at this time of day. Or maybe it’s because I’m closer to dreamscapes.

For instance, today I awoke near a border. It had to be with Mexico though in sleep I was convinced it was with Spain. It was sunny and hot. There was surveillance.

This was the not the meat of the dream, only a small side course. But it’s what stuck with me — and that it stuck with me at all is because I’m writing this in the wee hours.

The morning post. It’s not the only way to go, but I’m convinced it’s the best.

Sunday on the Deck with Work

Sunday on the Deck with Work

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I’m spending a large portion of the weekend working not on my own stuff but on Winrock’s. This isn’t typical, so I don’t mind it occasionally, and it’s for a good cause.

When I do things like this I’m taken back to my freelance days, when work and life were more of a piece. I interviewed people, wrote stories, raised daughters, cooked and took care of the house. These joys and duties were mish-mashed together in a sometimes glorious, often exhausting round of duties and responsibilities.

An interview, a carpool, a long writing session. Followed by another carpool and an after-dinner writing session. Somehow, the work always got done, the daughters got raised.

And this was accomplished with no cubicles, time sheets or meetings.

So now when I’m called upon to juggle free time and assignments, it doesn’t seem strange. It seems like how things oughta be.

Driving Home

Driving Home

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Yesterday I drove past the house of the woman who watched the girls for a year or two when I was writing a book. Her name was Eva; still is, I imagine. She’s moved back to Hungary and we’ve lost touch.

Eva was reserved and all business when we met, but she proved loving, dependable, creative and quirky. The girls loved her rice pudding and began pronouncing words with a slight Hungarian lilt. “Quintan” (the name of a little boy she also watched) became “Quintone.”

Suzanne was in second grade then so she didn’t got to Eva’s, but most days I would drop Celia off in the morning and Claire mid-day, after picking her up from the kindergarten bus. It wasn’t a perfect system, but it’s what I had.

What I was remembering yesterday, though, was how it felt to be driving the girls home in the afternoon. Suzanne would ride with me to pick up her sisters, and as we chugged home in the ancient blue Volvo wagon, I would have moments of perfect contentment: a good day of writing behind me, the promise of another to come, and most of all, the girls and I together again. Dinner was yet to be cooked, homework yet to be checked, bedtime stories yet to be read. But even then, I knew — told myself — hang on to this moment, it’s as good as it gets.

Smile Lines

Smile Lines

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It’s the last day of a soggy July, and I’m reminding myself that if we have to have extreme weather, better excess moisture than excess heat. People in northern California wouldn’t mind some rain about now, as they struggle with temps of 110 and a fire so intense that it’s creating its own winds and tornadoes.

Compared with that, I can easily find something nice to say about the frequent showers and thundershowers, the coziness they impart on a rainy Saturday afternoon. How they nurture the young trees we planted this spring. How little watering there is to do.

Of course, if I really could choose, I’d prefer ample rains that fall at night and leave the days sunny and clear. But since I can’t, I’m remembering lines from a Robert Frost poem about reconciling the choices we can’t make. They always make me smile.

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if I had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.